Hello Tomodotchi’s!
Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for reading our content. We hope it has been helpful in realizing that you are not alone. This blog has already become a form of therapy for ourselves, and we’re enjoying working on ourselves with you all! If you follow us weekly, I hope you are also challenging yourselves to think about the topics and finding your truths! As always if you are short on time, check out our TLDR (too long didn’t read) at the bottom!
For this week’s topic, we were incredibly inspired by a post that said “your self-worth is not defined by your compatibility with others”. Here at Tomodotchi our anxiety has made us into people pleasers and we truly felt our worth was defined by others approvals. Reading this really challenged our perspective of why we tied our worth to the opinions of others and what that truly meant. It also inspired us to think and understand where our self-worth should come from.
What is Self-Worth?
First and foremost, we should define self-worth from our perspective. To us, self-worth can be defined as our value and opinion of ourselves… I know what you are thinking, wow that is incredibly broad! What even defines value? Is it our net worth? Our perceived level of happiness? How many friends we have? We could ask a million people and we would probably get a million answers of what they value in their lives.
Honestly, if you asked us even as recently as last month, we probably would have answered that our self-worth was defined by others’ opinions and their perception of how successful we were. If you think about it, in many ways this is engrained in us as a society. We are judged on how good we look, how well we do on a test, how well liked we are, who has more money, a bigger house, etc. Many times, when we see people that we perceive as having more or being more than us, we feel insecure and jealous. As obvious as this next part is, and we know how hard this is to believe, but your self-worth is not tied any of those things! You decide and define your own self-worth! So, let’s dive into that!
Self-Worth and Compatability
If you are like us and your self-worth is tied to the opinion of others, we want to challenge you to think about what that truly means. We’ve all been told many times that not everyone is going to like you and that you can’t please everybody. While we all know this to be fundamentally true, it doesn’t always help. If you have anxiety and self-doubt, even the dislike of one person can be debilitating. On top of that, the reality is that many times people’s opinions are based on their compatibility with us. More often than not it comes down to the shallowest and most subjective of things; does that person make us laugh, do they agree with us, is the person “cool”?
Through this many times we end up trying to be all things for all people. We change who we are so that everyone will like some aspect of ourselves. We sacrifice ourselves so that we can be compatible with that other person.
This may be controversial but we don’t think we can be compatible with everyone. As simplistic as this is, imagine if you were trying to please two people; one person believes that Hawaiian Pizza is the best thing ever and the other feels that warm pineapple is the worst thing in existence. You can’t possibly like both, and one person will be upset with your choice. Most times, even if we gain the approval of one, we still feel the anxiety of the disapproval of that other person! In this case there is no way of making both parties happy! Of course, there are compromises, but even that ends with mild disappointment, which doesn’t help our anxiety.
Ultimately, it is not realistic to think that everyone will like you. It’s not realistic for you to pretend to be all things for all people. To us, we subscribe to the thought that you don’t have to like someone to love them. We feel it is good to respect and love all people for their differences, but ultimately, their like of you doesn’t drive your worth, especially when most likes are driven by superficial subjective thoughts. You simply existing gives you worth! We are all different and all our definitions of worth are and will always be different. So, what do we do to change our mindset? Well, that’s to be continued…
Right now!
Limited Thinking
When we have anxiety, it can be so easy to fixate on one way of thinking. This can be especially true for our self-worth. We start thinking of what others have and compare ourselves to them. We begin to think our self-worth should be defined by superficial subjective things. Personally, we fixate on our thoughts that any wrong move we make could negatively impact others and their opinion of us which would drive down our worth.
We limit our thoughts to only consider the negative. A perfect example for us; what if this post doesn’t help someone and makes their anxiety worse? Once we get fixated on that thought the anxiety train gets rolling and all our thoughts go negative. We start getting unmotivated, stressed and afraid. We want to not take any action in our life out of the fear of the negative.
This way of thinking is the perfect example of limited thinking. We limited ourselves to only focus on the negative. This lowers our opinion of ourselves and creates a low value of our own self-worth. We start thinking how worthless we can be and allow the negative thinking to overtake our rationality.
However, once we began to allow ourselves to consider the positive impact of our posts, we found the strength to continue forward. We increase our self-worth by thinking of the value we can bring to others and ourselves. For example, at the very least, at least our posts serve to help us grow, which is a positive thought that we would not have allowed ourselves to consider in the past! As we began to allow ourselves to consider the good that our stories could do or the change it could help promote. We were able to quiet the voices of negative self-worth and filled the space with positive self-worth. We hope you challenge your negative thoughts and allow your mind to be filled with the positive. This can be challenging, so at least allow yourself to think some positive thoughts rather than only negative. You’ve thought of the worst case, what’s the best case?
Get Real!
Tied to limited thoughts, we need to get real! What does this mean? We need to start tying our thoughts into our own realities. Everyone is born into different situations and we cannot compare our worth to one another. Comparing yourself to anyone else isn’t comparing apples to apples! Everyone has their own situations and circumstances. Whether you are born rich, poor, into a loving family or a broken family. We all have different stories that give us different advantages and disadvantages. Because of that we cannot compare our self-worth to one another. Just because Jane Doe’s life looks amazing on social media does not mean their life is actually good or better than yours.
It is not realistic to think you do need to be Mother Theresa or Elon Musk to have positive self-worth. You can help find your worth by asking yourself what do you want from your life? Fundamentally, we think we all just want to be happy and carefree. There are so many ways to get there; so, start thinking unlimitedly on how you can do this!
For us happiness is as simple as being able to go for a walk with our dogs without having negative thoughts and worrying. We simply focus on our dog’s happiness as we walk, and seeing how happy and carefree they are fills us with happiness and soon we cannot focus on anything but their joy in the simplest of things. As we find this simple happiness and meet our goal, we begin to see our value grow. Meeting our goal of being happy makes us feel successful and drives our self-worth up!
Wherever you find your self-worth, start thinking positive realistic thoughts. Don’t compare yourself to others and realize how much you bring to yourself or those around you. A smile can come in a million forms and we can guarantee you have brought a smile to someone’s face. How do we know this? Well just knowing you are reading this and engaging with us brings a smile to our face!
Find Your People
One of our favorite sayings when we were kids is “you are what you eat”. We used to find it so funny imagining ourselves as an orange or more truthfully, as candy! Candy is a food group, right? Sorry! Back on track, we say this because similarly we feel that you are an embodiment of the company you keep.
If you surround yourself with negative people who focus on what they don’t have, you will find yourself only able to think negatively. Your self-worth will diminish because you only know what you don’t have. Negativity will drive more negative thoughts and it drives you to have lower self-worth.
Instead, you should find people who see yours and their own self-worth. Positive thinking drives the best in all of us. The friends that encourage us always drives our feelings of success and self-worth up. Those around you know how valuable you are and they can help reinforce these thoughts. Now we know, as adults it can be hard to find friends. However, the digital age has made it easier than ever to find like-minded people.
You can join forums, communities, discords to chat with tons of other likeminded individuals. There are apps like meet up where you can find local groups who enjoy similar activities to yourself. Whatever your comfort levels, there are ways to find community. We here at Tomodotchi are one such community! Come join us and engage on our Facebook page or in the comments, you already have a friend in us! Surround yourself with positivity and you cannot help but start thinking positively about yourself.
Wrapping Up
In the end, only you can define your own self-worth and it shouldn’t be tied to any superficial metrics. Something as simple as you being happy on a walk gives you self-worth. Regardless of what you think gives you value, just remember to replace your negative thinking with positive realistic thoughts and with friends who support you. You’ll soon realize that you simply existing gives you self-worth and you determine your own value.
We hope you could relate to this message and challenge yourselves to really think about this topic. We would love to hear your thoughts! Let us know if you agree or disagree, and engage with us on our socials. We will continue to post new topics weekly, so consider giving us a follow! Regardless, just know you are worthy and will always have a friend in us at Tomodotchi.
Much love,
Tomodotchi
TLDR;
Do not compare yourself and your value against others. We are all inherently different and cannot be compared. Allow yourself to reform your negative thoughts into the opposite positive thought and think realistically about what drives your happiness. Find friends who support your happiness and watch your self-value grow! You are loved and worthy!
