If somebody could offer you a flight of stairs to climb, and promised you a stronger outlook on your self-worth at the top of them, would you commence climbing?
Today is that day. There are achievable steps to help you build a version of you that is less affected by what others say or do. Implemented regularly, these 8 actionable ways to inject a little empowerment into your life will strengthen how you see yourself, and leave those insistent on eroding your character helpless.
So if you find yourself mentally vulnerable to people who are intent on chipping away at you, this one’s for you.
1. Start separating fact from fiction.
The kinds of people who want to chip away at you will stop at nothing until you’re in pieces, but if you can learn to study what they say or how they act, you’ll notice a pattern going on.
Are you making things happen? Are you excelling at work? Maybe you’ve achieved a major life milestone, yet there always seems to be somebody ready to knock you down. Why is that? You’ve spent years thinking it’s because of you, but the problem can most often be found outside of you.
Those who don’t root for your wins want to be responsible for your losses. That is, whether they are doing it consciously or not, they are trying to bring you down. And throwing fictitious words your way in the hope you’ll believe them is just one cruel way they do that.
Psychologists advise that a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (or CBT) approach works great here because the beliefs you internalize from others about yourself don’t necessarily always translate to facts. To put this into practice, the next time somebody’s words cut a little too deep, write them down. Then ask yourself: what evidence actually proves this is true? What proves it isn’t? If your most trusted friend were reading this about you, would they agree with it?
More often than not, you’ll find the evidence stacks up heavily in your favor. You might even want to keep that piece of paper: it’s proof that what you were told and what is real are two very different things.
2. Find your self-worth in what you have to offer, and not what the outcome might be.
This really is a case of, “I meant well, and I tried my best.” That’s where self-worth can be found and celebrated, not just in the outcome of situations. Failing doesn’t make you a failure, and succeeding doesn’t make you a success. Sometimes, it’s about where your heart is and what your intentions are.
In other words, who are you? What do you have to offer? When you are sitting in your authentic self with nobody influencing you, what can you bring to the table? I’m talking about natural skills, personality traits, anything that can show you’re a good person with an authentic soul.
If you’re struggling to answer that, start small. Think about a time you made somebody feel better just by showing up. Or a skill that comes so naturally to you that you forget not everyone has it. That’s yours. Nobody gave it to you, and nobody can take it away.
Having something genuinely yours to offer means you can give it your all, no matter the outcome. If it doesn’t work out, then maybe next time it will. Those who are bothered by that can go and be bothered somewhere else.
3. Stop relying on others to carve out your identity for you.
If you’re waiting to be told how to act, how to present, what your image should be, or when to care, you’re wasting your time. There will always be people who would love to carve you into the person they want you to be, but it comes at a huge cost to you. The idea is to be independent in thought and character, rather than fall into the trap of becoming dependent on others’ approval.
And if you’re not sure who you are without someone else’s opinion guiding you, that’s okay. That’s actually where you start. Sit with yourself. Spend time reflecting on yourself, on what you like, what you value, what makes you feel like you without anyone else in the room.
Put simply, understand and accept that you don’t have to wait for permission to live your life. You don’t need to wait for somebody to tell you that you are – or aren’t – something before you can live authentically. You are you! You should be celebrated as you are, rather than shifted from it, and if anybody is doing that shifting, then it should be you, and for the better.
4. Be selectively permeable.
Do you ever wish you had a filter that got rid of all the thoughts and opinions of other people that just keep coming? That’s where being selectively permeable comes in. To be selectively permeable means you are in charge of what comes in and what you keep out. For example, sure, you can accept feedback if it’s helpful, but you can choose to reject criticism that only serves to be harsh. Just because someone said it doesn’t mean it’s true.
Of course, if you’ve spent years listening to other people’s negative opinions or feedback about you, then you may not be able to tell the difference between what’s constructive and what’s unfair and unnecessary. A good way to tell the difference is to ask yourself whether what you’re hearing is designed to help you grow or designed to make you shrink. Feedback helps you improve. Harsh criticism just tears down. Once you can spot that distinction, your filter starts to build itself, and you can more easily choose what you let affect you.
I’m in no means saying it’s easy to do, but with time and effort, it’s possible to get to a point where your filter is your biggest asset. At a time when you’d normally be chipped away at, you can decide to opt for the alternative and keep the comments or beliefs of others outside your boundary.
5. Turn what feels like an attack into something more palatable.
Most of the time, the way people speak has little to do with you and everything to do with them. From the words they choose to their tone of voice, all of what they say is down to their own brain wiring and conditioning. As such, you can’t stop people from talking to you in a way they’ve learned to talk.
For instance, you’re at work, and you miss a deadline. One boss might say, “I don’t like that you missed this. I need it by the end of the day, no excuses.” Another might say, “Do I pay you to be lazy and sleep on the job?”
Yes, your behavior may (or in some cases may not) warrant a response from them, but their exact response has nothing to do with you and everything to do with what words they choose, based on their own life experiences and current frame of mind. Understanding this is a form of cognitive restructuring, where the control lies with you to either translate what you’re hearing into something more palatable or discard their attitude entirely. Either way, it will do your mental health and self-worth the world of good to refuse to absorb their rudeness.
6. Develop a portfolio of evidence to prove yourself wrong.
When I say portfolio, this can be whatever you want it to look like. If it’s in your mind, great. If it’s a hard list on paper or post-it notes, even better. It needs to be a list of your successes (no matter how small), good qualities (even if you think everyone has them – trust me, they don’t), and kind things people have said about you, no matter how trivial they seem.
The reason it’s good to compile evidence like this is that you will always have something to read when you need to prove what you’re being told or led to believe is wrong.
You’re so this.
You’re not enough of that.
You’re too much!
You’re not good enough!
You can’t do this properly.
Says who? Because with a list of evidence to the contrary, you can dispel these ideas you’ve been fed. You deserve to keep track of your strengths, and when that chisel and hammer come out, and you’re afraid a little more of yourself is about to be lost, you get to decide that they’re wrong. What a power to have.
7. Take the advice you’d give to your best friend.
Your best friend comes to you and tells you that they’re losing their self-worth to the unkind words and actions of others. You would (hopefully) say:
“You’re amazing. Don’t let anybody make you feel otherwise. Your self-worth shouldn’t be a reflection of the opinions of others.”
You listen, you support, you encourage, and you inspire. Your best friend walks away feeling lighter and happier, with a newly-found determination for building themselves back up, thanks to you.
You can also be responsible for your own pep talk, too, and this is the practice that underpins Dr Kristin Neff’s pioneering work on self-compassion, which research shows is a much better predictor of positive mental health, motivation, and success than self-criticism is.
Those very words you utter in love to somebody important can also be words you give yourself, especially seeing as your best friend means so much to you.
I want you to mean that much to you, too. Take your own advice for once.
8. Treat consistency as your goal, and not confidence.
Everybody talks about confidence as if it were the easiest thing to obtain for the self. But sometimes it isn’t, and on those occasions, your focus should instead be on consistency. Be consistent with what you do to improve your self-worth, so you can be less mentally vulnerable to those keen to chip away at you.
If your goal is to apply new habits, then with consistency, those habits will become patterns that start to form a new you. Confidence is the outcome of consistency, a side effect if you will. Why? Because your self-worth and self-confidence will come when you can prove to yourself that you can make the necessary changes you need.
I did it.
I achieved this.
I made this happen every day in small ways.
I didn’t give up.
Belief in yourself comes when you know you can do something well, and when that has been proven to you. Consistent effort is the way to do that.
Final thoughts…
Even on your happiest of days, there will always be somebody ready to chip away at your self-worth. The real question is, are they able to? Do their words matter so much to you that you subconsciously offer them permission to pull chunks from your identity?
Without properly protecting yourself, the attitudes and unkindness of others can and will seep into your life and extinguish your spark. By prioritizing the concept that you matter, you are far more able to build on that belief and become somebody less likely to be affected by the hurtful words or actions of those who are, let’s be honest, nothing but miserable with their own lives.
