Quotes About Self-worth

if you don't put value on your work, no one is going to do that for you.

And just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn't change its worth or ours.

Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.

Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance.

Once everyone understands their vale, we stop hustling for worthiness and lean into our gifts.

Human approval is one of our most treasured idols, and the offering we must lay at its hungry feet is keeping others comfortable.

Life-paralysis refers to all of the opportunities we miss because we're too afraid to put anything out in the world that could be imperfect. It's also all of the dreams that we don't follow because of our deep fear of failing, making mistakes, and disappointing others. It's terrifying to risk when you're a perfectionist; your self-worth is on the line.

in the midst of all of these struggles, they have developed practices that enable them to hold on to the belief that they are worthy of love, belonging, and even joy.

Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think?

When we degrade and diminish our humanity, even in response to being degraded and diminished, we break our own wild hearts.

Just as a reminder from Chapter 4, perfectionism is not teaching them how to strive for excellence or be their best selves. Perfectionism is teaching them to value what other people think over what they think or how they feel. It's teaching them to perform, please, and prove. Unfortunately, I have many examples from my own life.

if we want freedom from perfectionism, we have to make the long journey from "What will people think?" to "I am enough." That journey begins with shame resilience, self-compassion, and owning our stories.

Last, perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame. Perfectionism is a function of shame.

Healthy-striving self-talk: "I want this for me. I want to feel better and be healthier. The scale doesn't dictate if I'm loved and accepted. If I believe that I'm worthy of love and respect now, I will invite courage, compassion, and connection into my life. I want to figure this out for me. I can do this.

Don't always be appraising yourself, wondering if you are better or worse than other writers. "I will not Reason and Compare," said Blake; "my business is to Create." Besides, since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of Time, you are incomparable.

No one belongs here more than you.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.

i am enough

Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.

Wrong thinking about God and people often begins with a debased image of ourselves.

My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this: God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.

If in our hearts we really don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.

Freedom in Christ produces a healthy independence from peer pressure, people-pleasing, and the bondage of human respect.