Robyn on Purpose
Discover Your True Purpose
Cultivating Self-Worth
The experiences you have can become part of how you understand your value.
For some, feeling good about themselves becomes closely connected to the evidence around them — being appreciated, needed, successful, capable, respected, or seen in the way they hope to be seen. When that evidence changes, the way they feel about themselves changes with it
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For others, the evidence is already there — but it doesn't seem to carry much weight. Accomplishments are minimized. Compliments are dismissed. Appreciation is explained away. Yet mistakes, criticism, regret, or disappointment are readily accepted as evidence of something lacking in themselves.
You may recognize yourself in both.
You may spend a great deal of energy creating experiences that help you feel good about who you are, while giving far more weight to the experiences that make you question it.
When Worth Needs Evidence
You put a great deal of effort into being someone you can feel good about.
Being helpful. Responsible. Capable. Generous. Accomplished. Considerate. Dependable. Someone who shows up, follows through, works hard, or can be counted on.
Being appreciated feels validating. Being needed brings a sense of importance or purpose. Accomplishment brings confidence and pride. Recognition helps you feel seen. Knowing that someone trusts or respects you reinforces the way you want to see yourself. These feelings can be deeply nourishing.
There is nothing wrong with wanting experiences that make you feel good about yourself. Feeling good about who you are is something worth cultivating.
The difficulty comes when those feelings become more than something you experience. They become a measure of your value. And instead of simply enjoying feeling appreciated, capable, needed, respected, or proud, you begin relying on those feelings to reassure you that the qualities you value in yourself are actually there.
When the measure of your value exists outside of you, you need your experiences to keep confirming it. But life doesn't work that way. Your capacity will change. You won't always succeed. Other people won't always approve. Sometimes you will need rather than be needed. You will make mistakes, disappoint people, require help, or make choices that are right for you but difficult for someone else.
And suddenly ordinary experiences start to carry much more weight.
Saying no isn't only uncomfortable; you lose access to the feeling of being generous and are left with guilt and the worry that you're selfish.
Criticism leaves you questioning yourself endlessly.
Asking for help doesn't only require vulnerability; it disrupts the competence you normally experience through being the capable one.
Disappointing someone doesn't only create discomfort; it challenges your belief that you're a good, caring, or considerate person.
You're not only dealing with the discomfort of the experience. You're also dealing with what you believe it says about you as a person.
This can feel very destabilizing.
When Not All Evidence Carries the Same Weight
The evidence you gather about yourself may not be given equal consideration.
You may accomplish something and quickly move on to what still needs to be done. Someone may compliment you and you dismiss it. You may be deeply appreciated and assume you were simply doing what anyone should do.
But a mistake stays with you.
Criticism replays long after the conversation has ended. Something you regret becomes evidence of your character. A moment when you were selfish, unkind, reactive, or simply not the person you wanted to be carries more weight than years of experiences that suggest otherwise.
You can spend a great deal of time creating evidence that you are capable, caring, generous, accomplished, or worthy — without ever really allowing yourself to receive it.
Seeing Worth Through a Different Lens
You have many people in your life that you interact with, but you don't relate to all of them in the same way.
The amount of care, consideration, time, patience, and understanding you extend changes from one relationship to another.
With some people, what you are willing to give is influenced by what you receive in return.
Their effort matters.
Their behaviour matters.
What they contribute matters.
Whether they meet your expectations matters.
These things become part of how you decide what they deserve from you.
But that decision isn't always fixed. Sometimes you learn something about a person—their circumstances, what they're carrying, or what they've been through—and you find yourself extending care or consideration that you weren't offering before.
Nothing about their worth changed. What changed was what you could see.
Then there are the people in your life who never have to earn what you give them.
They don't have to prove they are worthy of your love before you love them. They don't have to accomplish something to earn your respect. They don't have to be useful to receive your care or be at their best to receive your compassion.
Your love, care, and respect aren't conditional on them proving they deserve it.
The Difference Understanding Makes
Think about someone you love and know well.
When they make a mistake, disappoint you, or behave in a way you don't agree with, you may still feel frustrated or hurt. But your response is informed by everything else you know about them.
You know their history.
You understand what they were trying to do.
You recognize what they may have been afraid of.
You know the qualities that one difficult moment doesn't erase.
You can see what they did, but it doesn't become the measure of who they are.
Now think about someone you have a difficult relationship with.
When they make a mistake, disappoint you, or behave in a way you don't agree with, your response is informed by everything you already believe about them.
You assume you know what motivated them.
You attach meaning to what they did.
You interpret their behaviour through your history with them.
You allow one difficult moment to reinforce what you already think you know.
You see what they did, and it becomes the measure of who they are.
Creating a Different Kind of Evidence
The way you treat someone communicates something about the value they hold for you. The same is true of the way you treat yourself.
Treating yourself as though you are worthy gives you the chance to discover that you are.
Many of the ways that you show someone that they matter to you probably feels natural. You give them your time and attention. You consider their needs. You make an effort to understand them. You offer patience, care, and respect.
Learning to extend those same things to yourself creates a different kind of evidence—the kind that doesn't depend on what you achieved, contributed, got right, or received from someone else.
You can begin by looking at the ways you communicate value in your relationships—and what it looks like to bring them into the relationship you have with yourself.
Care & Attention
I notice you, and your wellbeing matters to me.
When you care about someone, you pay attention to them. You notice when something seems off. You remember what matters to them. You make time to listen, check in, offer support, and share in the things that bring them joy.
That attention helps you recognize what they need. Sometimes care means stepping in and helping. Sometimes it means making space for them to rest, encouraging them to do something they enjoy, or simply being present while they work through something difficult.
Bringing that same care and attention to yourself begins with noticing yourself.
How are you feeling?
What has been taking more from you than usual?
What are you enjoying?
What are you missing?
What do you need more—or less—of right now?
You can't respond to yourself with care if you aren't paying attention to what is happening within you.
Respect & Consideration
I take you into account.
When you respect someone, their experience has weight. You consider their needs, feelings, preferences, limits, and priorities rather than making decisions as though yours are the only ones that matter.
You don't have to agree with everything they want or make every decision around them. But you make room for them in the equation.
Extending that same respect and consideration to yourself means including yourself in the decisions you make.
You consider your capacity before saying yes.
You allow your preferences to matter even when someone else wants something different.
You recognize your limits instead of continually overriding them.
You make decisions that account for how they will affect you—not only how they will affect everyone else.
Respecting yourself doesn't mean always choosing yourself. It means you stop automatically excluding yourself from consideration.
Understanding & Compassion
I make an effort to understand you, not simply judge you.
When someone matters to you, you make an effort to understand what is behind what you see. You consider what they were trying to do, what they might have been afraid of, what they were carrying, and why something may have been difficult for them.
That understanding makes room for compassion. You can recognize where they got something wrong without making that moment the measure of who they are.
Extending that same understanding and compassion to yourself means becoming curious about your own experience before rushing to judgement.
Instead of stopping at I shouldn't have done that, I should know better, or Why am I like this?, you look a little deeper.
What was happening for you?
What were you trying to protect, avoid, manage, or meet?
What did you need that you didn't know how to ask for?
Understanding doesn't require you to excuse your behaviour or avoid responsibility. It allows you to learn from what happened without using it as evidence against your worth.
When Prioritizing Yourself Feels Selfish
If you are used to putting other people first, giving more consideration to yourself can feel like taking something away from them.
There will always be reasons not to.
Someone needs you.
There isn't enough time.
There are things that have to get done.
Other people's needs feel more important.
It seems easier to keep going than to ask someone else to adjust.
And underneath many of those reasons can be a much simpler belief:
Putting myself first is selfish.
But before accepting that conclusion, look at the evidence of what continually putting yourself last is creating.
What happens when you are exhausted, stretched too thin, resentful, overwhelmed, or running on very little of what you need?
How patient are you?
How present are you?
How much do you enjoy the people you're doing so much for?
How easily do small things overwhelm you?
How much of what you give comes from genuine willingness—and how much comes from obligation?
Taking care of yourself isn't separate from what you bring to your relationships.
Your capacity affects how you show up in them.
And if you have children, there is another kind of evidence worth considering.
Children learn from what they repeatedly experience and observe. You can tell them that their needs matter, that rest is important, that they don't have to please everyone, and that it's okay to have limits.
But what they absorb is what they continually see you do.
If they see you override your own needs, apologize for having limits, carry more than you can sustain, or treat everyone else's wellbeing as more important than your own, that becomes part of what they learn about how a person is supposed to live.
Taking yourself into consideration isn't necessarily putting yourself ahead of everyone else.
It is allowing yourself to be one of the people who matters.
Start Small
Changing the way you treat yourself doesn't require you to begin with the things that feel hardest.
You may understand the idea and still find it difficult to say no. You may recognize that your needs matter and still feel guilty when you prioritize them. You may know that your worth shouldn't depend on what you do for others and still feel uncomfortable when you stop doing.
You don't have to begin there.
Start with the things that don't require you to disappoint anyone, change a relationship, or defend a decision.
Give yourself some of your time—and make it time that actually gives something back to you. Not simply filling an hour or disappearing into distraction, but doing something that nourishes you, interests you, restores you, or helps you feel more connected to yourself.
Use some of that time to build a different relationship with yourself. Reflect on why you are so much harder on yourself than you are on the people you care about. Notice the standards you hold yourself to, the things you rarely give yourself credit for, and the places where judgement comes more readily than understanding.
Practice offering yourself compassion.
As you begin to see yourself as a whole, evolving human being rather than someone who is continually being measured, the other pieces can begin to shift too.
Considering yourself doesn't feel quite as selfish. Honouring a limit doesn't feel quite as wrong. Saying no doesn't carry quite the same meaning about who you are.
You aren't waiting until you feel worthy to treat yourself differently.
You are allowing the way you treat yourself to become part of how you learn that you are.
Additional Resources
Explore what it looks like to make your own wellbeing worthy of your time and attention—and to create more space for the things that restore you, support you, and add something meaningful to your life.
Explore the patterns that can keep you judging, overriding, or proving yourself—and begin understanding what has been driving them instead.
When treating yourself differently feels uncomfortable, this page explores why familiar ways of being can be difficult to leave behind—and how to build the self-trust to choose differently.
Explore Cultivating Self-Worth
Through Journaling
Recognizing Your Own Value
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What do I genuinely appreciate about who I am?
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What qualities have I developed that I am proud of?
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What have I handled, learned, created, or overcome that deserves my own recognition?
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What do I contribute to the lives of others simply through who I am, not only through what I do for them?
Giving Yourself What You Give Others
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How do I show the people I care about that they matter to me?
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Which of those expressions of care do I rarely extend to myself?
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Where could I give my own needs, feelings, preferences, or well-being greater consideration?
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What would I make room for simply because it would be good for me?
Looking at What Your Current Choices Are Creating
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What is my current way of doing things costing me?
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How does that cost affect the way I show up for the people I care about?
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What am I teaching the people around me about rest, limits, needs, responsibility, or self-respect through the way I treat myself?
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If someone I loved lived the way I currently do, would I believe it was good for them?
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What am I afraid would happen if I began taking myself into greater consideration?
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What evidence do I already have that continuing exactly as I am isn't the answer?
Being Someone You Can Rely On
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What do I need from myself right now?
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What commitment to myself would I like to take more seriously?
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When I struggle or make a mistake, how would I like to learn to respond to myself?
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Where could I support myself rather than immediately asking more of myself?
Finding a Way to Practice It
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What would I like to do differently for myself?
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What makes that difficult in my life right now?
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Which parts of that difficulty can I influence, and which can't I?
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If I can't give myself what I need in the way I would ideally like to, how else could I honour that need?
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What is the smallest realistic way I could begin?
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What would I need to ask for, change, learn, communicate, or stop doing to make more room for myself?