Do you know your self-worth? Are you aware of all your unique abilities, know-how, and character traits?

 

Many of us aren’t. And this lack of self-worth can lead to compulsive perfectionism. Perfectionism is often the source of distress, anxiety, or even depression. Let’s evaluate how our self-worth is connected to perfectionism and why knowing it is the best therapy for perfectionism.

Oftentimes, the source of compulsive perfectionism is a misperception or lack of self-worth. This means that the better you know your own worth and cultivate it, the smaller the chances that perfectionism becomes an issue for you.

We often don’t know our self-worth because society, media, and even education teach us since we are small to strive for certain values and emulate so-called successful role models. This makes it so hard to develop and know our true self-worth. We are constantly comparing and judging ourselves based on the standards society teaches us. And if we don’t reach them we often feel miserable and not worthy.

 

What is Self-Worth?

 

Self-worth is the impression you have about yourself and the value you place on yourself. An example of self-worth is your belief that you are a good person who deserves good things or the mindset that you are a loser who can’t get anything done.

People with healthy self-worth are judging it based on various factors such as their personal qualities, relationships with their partner, family, and friends, their different skills, achievements, and abilities. These people feel okay with having certain weaknesses and see them as part of their unique personalities.

Typical perfectionist behavior is to judge one’s self-worth almost entirely on achieving one’s goals and non-negotiable standards. They tend to overvalue achieving and base their identity on their accomplishments. The focus is often only on one category of their life (career for example).

 

This is very risky because if this doesn’t work out as expected they tend to judge themselves negatively and tend to think they are worthless. Judging one’s self-worth on only one thing often causes a lot of pressure on making sure it works out. These people often feel stressed, guilty, annoyed, and even depressed or anxious.

A lot of perfectionists also evaluate their self-worth based on standards or certain role models that society presents them with. Often they have little or nothing in common with the true desires, qualities, and nature of this person. They strive to become like this because of the fear of not being worthy or rejected and therefore attach their self-worth to these unrelenting standards, and try to become like their role models.

 

That’s why it’s so helpful for these people to expand their radius and explore new activities and areas of interest in their life. New experiences broaden the foundation of one’s self-worth. As a result, it becomes much easier to accept weaknesses in certain areas with a smile. Because they are made up by the strengths they have in other areas of their life.

It becomes obvious that these so-called weaknesses and failures are not corresponding to the value of oneself as an individual person. As a result, one’s imperfection is more likely to be perceived as normal and human (= personality).

 

The Overcome Perfectionism Toolkit contains an exercise that will help you to get to know your unique personality a bit better. You will also learn that your self-worth shouldn’t be based on just one or two things in life.

The first step is to become aware of what you’re basing your self-worth on. The second part will allow you to identify other areas of your life that you would like to extend in order to develop a more balanced sense of self-worth. Knowing your self-worth is the best therapy for perfectionism.