How to Value Your Self
If you had the opportunity to watch yourself as you moved through your day, would you see a person behaved as though they valued themselves?
The very fortunate could answer yes to these questions. For the rest of us, we can learn to fake it ‘til we make it.
What does it even mean to “value your self?
First, the self is a concept that feels very intuitive, yet has been defined and debated by philosophers, psychologists, theologians, and researchers for millennia. For our purposes, Heinz Kohut’s definition is useful:
“sense of a coherent, stable (yet dynamic) experience of one’s individuality, continuity in time and space, autonomy, efficacy, motivation, values, and desires” (APA, retrieved March 2023).
Valuing your self means you have respect for the self you experience, you view your self as important, and so you invest time, energy, and effort in you. Since you believe you have value, you also view your self as worthy of love, respect, success and happiness. Not only does it affect the way you treat your self, but it also affects the way you allow others to treat you.
In day-to-day life, if we watched someone who has self-value, you would see them behaving in certain ways. Check out the list below to see which ones you do:
I set up and enforce healthy boundaries
I take part in activities that matter to me
I spend time in positive relationships
I say no when needed
I maintain my personal integrity
I take care of my physical and mental health
If you found that you got to the end of the list and hadn’t checked too many boxes, no worries - there’s still hope!
How did we get here?
Let’s take a step back and figure out how we got to not valuing ourselves. We are born as beings who are only able to demand care and attention – the self is all that is important. And by the time clients come to me as adults, they struggle to value themselves treat themselves with respect. Somewhere along the way, things changed dramatically – what happened?
Our concept of our “self” changes over time. We develop from a blissfully unaware baby, to an idea of what we like, to a full understanding of the self and its separateness from others.
Idyllic Early Childhood
It’s our increasing cognitive abilities and experience with the world that allows our sense of self to develop. As toddlers and young children, we simply view the “self” as concrete categories – physical (I have brown eyes), social (I have a sister), active (I can skip), psychological (I am happy), preferences (I like pizza), and possessions (I have a dog).
In this wonderfully ignorant period of time, due to cognitive limitations of early childhood, children view their own abilities as absolute (e.g. “I’m strong. I can lift anything!”) and dichotomous (e.g. I’m never scared!). And perhaps the best part of early childhood – there’s no social comparison. They haven’t yet developed the ability to relate one concept (e.g. their strength) to another (e.g. Daddy’s strength). Ahhh, imagine a life without our minds comparing us to others.
Yet, we do see effects on self-esteem at this age, even with this undeveloped sense of self. Young children with high self-esteem act with confidence and curiosity, and are adaptive to change and stress (notice these descriptions line up with children with secure attachment). They also begin to show shame behaviours – reacting to adults’ disapproval or their negative responses to the child’s failure.
Soothing, positive affect, interest in the infant’s activities, support for mastery attempts, praise, and (nonintrusive) encouragement all lay the groundwork for a healthy sense of self during toddlerhood and early childhood (Harter, 2003).
A securely attached infant has a working model of the self as valued, loved, and competent. An insecurely attached infant has a working model of the self as devalued, conditionally loved, and incompetent. This arises in a context of the experience of caregivers being rejecting of attempts at attachment by the child and interfering with the child’s exploration and mastery of their environment. Even at this very young age, we can learn to not value our self.
Selective Selves
Let’s say we came through childhood valuing our self. Is our self “safe” at that point? We’ve still got some major developing to do, as our cognitive abilities take a leap.
During adolescence, we develop multiple selves for all the roles we fill (student, daughter, sister, peer, romantic partner, athlete, musician, etc.). Parents recognize this easily – a happy and extroverted teen with friends, becomes a sullen and sarcastic nightmare at home. The adolescent self-worth is also very relation-based – how much they like themselves varies across relationships. Unlike young children, adolescents use social comparison to judge their self-worth and are very sensitive to feedback about themselves. All this adds up to a fluctuating sense of the self – who am I?
Think back to the different roles you had in adolescence. Did you feel competent in them? Did the people who were significant in your life give you support and approval for the person you felt you were? Or was their approval conditional on your achievement of unrealistic standards or behaviour that felt unlike you? At this stage of life, we may feign a false self to gain approval from caregivers, which ultimately leaves the true self unvalued.
These two critical periods of time in your life – infancy/early childhood and adolescence – had the potential to create a healthy view of self, a self that is valued and respected. Our self and its interactions with our caregivers, siblings, friends, other significant people, and our world helped to develop a sense of competence and being loved and valued. Or, further along the continuum, we may have developed the sense of not having an impact on the world around us, and feeling unloved and unvalued.
Am I stuck Not Valuing my self?
So, some of us have started out behind the eight ball in terms of our ability to value ourselves. The good news is that we can change that by changing our behaviour. Self-value involves action, so we can act as though we value our self, even if our mind is not on board. Since our brains do not like dissonance, it helps change our beliefs about our self – I act like I have value, so I must??!
Imagine something you might value – maybe a pet. How would you treat it? You would likely:
Keep it safe – steer clear of the dog that lunges at your pup on your walks
Feed it healthy food (and treats too!) and fresh water
Soothe it when it’s scared
Give attention to it when it asks for it
Provide comfortable shelter and cozy dog bed
Exercise it
Teach it boundaries
Say no when something isn’t healthy for it
Notice these are all actions. You’re not “positive affirmation-ing” your dog. You are demonstrating its value through action.
What are ways you can invest time, energy, and effort into yourself? Here are 4 important categories to get your brain thinking. Remember to aim for small improvements, not perfection! You are a work in progress, not the final product.
Physical well-being (e.g. exercise, eat well, go to the doctor when unwell or injured)
Emotional well-being (e.g. self-compassion, self-validation, setting boundaries, connecting with others)
Your environment (e.g. safety, comfort)
Your relationships (e.g. healthy boundaries, making time for friends)
Think small steps – even something as small as accepting the last piece of dessert demonstrates to your mind – you have value and deserve consideration. If small steps even seem like a struggle, try seeking help from a therapist.
Kira Hensley
The information on this website is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment or to replace your relationship with your health care provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen on this site.