Fearless Fridays: Knowing Your Worth

 You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are. ~Yogi Bhajan

I was chatting with a friend on Facebook last night and we started talking about being single. The topic of knowing your worth came up and it instantly took me back to when I was a little girl.  I remember my dad always holding my face, looking into my eyes and telling me how beautiful I was, how smart I was and how I was destined to be something great in this world. He would then end that motivational mini speech with this: “Never lose sight of your worth. That will take you places because you will never settle for mediocrity.”

Wow, powerful words. That was my dad. He was always schooling me on something. And I always listened. 

When people talk of knowing your worth, it’s usually directed towards just dating, like my conversation with my friend. While knowing your worth is imperative in dating, knowing your worth is something imperative in your life period. This is something I learned early on by my dad’s words. We live in a tough, harsh world. Some might say it’s almost like a “survival of the fittest” environment. And the first armor you can create to protect yourself in this world is to know your worth.

Knowing your worth means you will never settle for any mistreatment from anyone; you will know when it’s time to move on.  Knowing your worth means you will never give up until you accomplish what you desire because you believe in yourself. So many things grow from that base of knowing your worth. Your self-love grows, your self-respect grows, your determination grows and most importantly, your persistence and patience grows. Knowing your worth means knowing your value and knowing that you are worthy of having a great relationship, a career you love, being surrounded by people who love and appreciate you and shoot, even worthy of a great outfit and shoes to match!

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world ~ Lucille Ball

Artwork by Rita Loyd © 2013 
http://www.NurturingArt.com

Self-worth and self-esteem go hand in hand. If you don’t think highly of yourself, you will not know what your true worth is. No one will love you like you love yourself. So many of us seek validation from others or compare ourselves to others, which just sets us up to loath ourselves because we will never be like that other person. Honestly, why would you want to be someone else when there’s only one you in the world? Knowing your worth means knowing that you are unique and different and that’s a very powerful thing. No one can ever take that away from you.

The first step in loving yourself and knowing your worth is accepting you for you, flaws and all. No one is perfect in this world. Even when someone appears perfect, they are not. Their imperfections may not be visible to the eye but they exist. When you see the world for its imperfections and the beauty within those imperfections, you will look at life with a new set of eyes. Your flaws are your flaws. But how you look at them is what they will mean to you. Your flaws are what you make them to be. If you focus solely on your flaws and ignore the great things about you, you will never know how amazing you truly are. Our flaws are only a fraction of who we are. We’re the ones who have the power to either put the spotlight on our flaws and dwell on them OR accept our flaws for what they are and focus on the rest of ourselves that is fabulous, unique and wonderful.  

It’s not easy and won’t happen in a day. But if you work at it, it gets easier each day. Despite my dad constantly speaking greatness into my life, I am human and had my own moments of uncertainty. For me, I always felt like I never belonged.  A lot of it had to do with being the lone big girl in my circles and feeling “almost” beautiful.  People would always tell me that if I lost weight, I’d be beautiful. Or if I lost weight, I could do this or that. It was as if my weight determined my worth and my standing in the world.  When I looked in the mirror, I saw a beautiful person but it was hard to shut those other voices out of my head, telling me I was not beautiful. It used to bug me how much worth people put on outer beauty. Frankly, it really screwed my head up when it came to how I looked at outer beauty. So I would wonder what was wrong with me and compare myself to others.

It took some time and the Universe placing people in my path who offered wisdom along the way, for me to see that I was beautiful, inside and out. Once I saw that, I knew my worth and knew that my beauty did not determine my worth. Once I knew my worth, my life changed dramatically because I did not settle for mediocrity. Daddy was right. When you know your worth, you never settle for anything less than what you deserve and want. You won't give yourself away and let people use you and mistreat you. You won't loath and mistreat yourself. 

Knowing your worth is about being true to who you are and knowing that no matter what you have done in the past or what people think of you, you are an incredible, amazing being and you're worth more than gold, diamonds and all the money in the world. When you hold yourself in this high regard, anything is possible. The sky's the limit! And no one can change that unless you let them.  Knowing your worth is the answer to letting great things come into your life, letting love find you and living your life to its highest potential.

I can close my eyes and remember how my dad looked at me when I graduated from college (I was the first one in my family to graduate from college). He looked at me so proudly and said, "I knew you could do it. And you knew it, too."  Yes, Daddy, I know my worth...thank you for seeing it before I did. Your legacy lives on.