Someone from our community recently sent me an email. She didn’t understand why she had low self-worth, and she wanted to know if it was something she could change as an adult.
The answer is a resounding YES.
We’re going to cover how low self-worth develops, what it looks like when it’s running in the background of your life, and what you can do to build something more solid because building more self-worth requires practice.
Let’s start with the premise that we are all born worthy. Simply by virtue of being alive. The work is figuring out what got in the way of that, and how to come back to it.
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Why You Might Have Low Self-Worth
Self-worth begins to form early, based on how you are treated and what the adults in your life model for you.
Did the adults around you undervalue their own accomplishments? Deflect praise? Struggle to own what they had done well? We absorb those behaviors. If the people who raised you couldn’t hold their own worth, you may have learned, without anyone saying a word, that worth is something you have to earn. And if you were treated poorly, you may have internalized, as kids do, that it was somehow your fault.
Another element that influences self-worth is what you received positive feedback for. Did you receive praise primarily for your looks, your grades, or your accomplishments? There’s nothing wrong with being recognized for those things, but when achievement is consistently where the approval lives, we start to tie our worth to the next accomplishment. And when there isn’t one, worth disappears with it.
I saw this when I was a talent agent. Actors who hadn’t done much therapy were only secure when they were working. For many of them, that was a few times a year. The rest of the time, they were waiting to feel worthy again. If your self-worth depends on external validation, it isn’t self-worth. It’s an approval treadmill.
If you love a good journal sesh, the guide has all the questions you need. Get it at terricole.com/guide.
How Low Self-Worth Presents
Low self-worth can show up as a harsh inner critic, approval-seeking, fear of rejection, hypersensitivity to criticism, and the good old compare-and-despair, which is measuring your value against other people’s.
Compliment deflection is one thing people often overlook. If someone gives you a compliment and your instinct is to brush it off or explain it away, there’s often a worthiness wound underneath. My mother used to say a compliment is like a gift. If someone handed you a little blue Tiffany’s box, you wouldn’t throw it on the floor. You’d receive it graciously.
Start now. When someone compliments you, say thank you. You don’t have to agree. Just receive it.
What You Can Do About It
Reparent yourself. Treat yourself with the kindness of a good parent, maybe the good parent you didn’t fully get. Prioritize how you feel. Give yourself your own attention. Put yourself first. That may be a significant shift, but it’s one in the right direction. Whatever you didn’t get from your parents, you can provide for yourself now.
Track your inner critic. For 24 hours, every time you have a critical thought about yourself, snap a hair tie on your wrist, just enough to interrupt the pattern. Replace the thought with something that feels true enough to say. Notice when it’s happening and with whom.
Do the baby photo exercise. Find a photo of yourself as a baby. Put it somewhere you’ll see it every day. When you see it, send that little face love. No baby needs to earn worthiness. They just are. That baby is you.
Build better boundaries. You cannot self-abandon your way to more self-worth. Give yourself permission to say, “Thanks, I’ll get back to you in 24 hours.” A simple decision-making policy is a place to start.
Find your people. After you’re with someone, how do you feel? Worthy or unworthy? You have every right to raise the standards for who gets access to the VIP section of your life. I’d also love for you to consider joining TCM Weekly, my virtual community where we meet every week to talk about exactly this kind of work. Come join us at terricole.com/tcm.
Self-worth is an inside job. It comes from deciding, over and over, that how you feel, what you think, and what you want matter. Not because you earned it. Because you’re here.
And, as always, take care of you.
The journal questions, exercises, and TCM Weekly link are all at terricole.com/guide.
Terri Cole Answers Your FAQs From The Week’s Blog
Why do some people struggle with self-worth even when they had a good childhood? Self-worth isn’t only shaped by obvious neglect or trauma. It can be quietly influenced by subtler dynamics, like a parent who deflected compliments, tied love to achievement, or modeled harsh self-criticism. We absorb those patterns without anyone meaning harm. A childhood can look fine from the outside while still leaving gaps in how worthy we learned to feel.
What is the difference between self-confidence and self-worth? Self-confidence is often tied to specific skills or outcomes, and how you feel about your ability to do something. Self-worth is more fundamental. It’s the baseline sense that you matter regardless of what you achieve, how you look, or what anyone thinks of you. You can be confident in certain areas and still carry a deep worthiness wound underneath.
Why is it so hard to accept compliments? Compliment deflection is often a sign of a worthiness wound. When we’re hypercritical of ourselves, accepting praise can feel dishonest or even threatening. Practicing a simple “thank you” without explanation or deflection is a small but meaningful way to begin shifting that pattern. You don’t have to believe the compliment fully. You just have to receive it.
Can you actually build self-worth as an adult, or is it set in childhood? Self-worth can absolutely be built in adulthood. It requires awareness of where the wound came from, interrupting the critical self-talk that maintains it, and making consistent choices that prioritize how you feel, what you think, and what you want. It’s an inside job, and it’s ongoing work, but it’s available to anyone willing to do it.