Finding the Balance between Worth and Value

As a culture, we have gotten a little confused about the difference between worth and value in my opinion. A few things have helped me keep this clear for my growth and understanding. It has helped me see all people as worthy and in return increased my desire to add value from a place of knowing that my worth will not change.

Skill Set and Being Human   

Skills and self-esteem are associated with adding value and being proud. While worth and worthiness are associated with being human. I have found myself on more than one occasion mixing these things up and let me tell you it created a lot of heartaches. Have you found yourself wondering if that person is worthless or not adding value and what is the difference? Taking the time to self-evaluate and see how worth and value are different will allow you to connect with purpose.

What is Your worth?

Our worthiness never needs to change. This is the part that can be tricky for people. Being 100 percent worthy without adding value, how can that be? The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. Not this soul or that soul, but all souls. The way God loves us is an example to me of how I can love myself and others. Once you have decided what your higher power is, the universe, mother earth, buddha, and so on.  It can help in seeing all humans as being 100 percent worthy.

Picking up the belief that you are 100 % worthy without adding value can do a lot for a person. 1^st it gives you permission to be you without having to do anything. 2^nd Believing this, you show up from a place of abundance and not having to prove your worth to others. 3^rd when you decide to add value to the world it will come from a place of wholeness as opposed to adding value to be more worthy. Being clear with this thinking can be a big shift I run my own race and I don’t have to compete with anyone else.

Growing and Adding Value

Growing one’s self-esteem usually begins in childhood. As you attempt to perform tasks, such as learning your alphabet, reading, numbers, and theories. All these attempts help you gain self-esteem in your abilities. Performing a task and improving it over time will make you more valuable to an organization that sees value in that skill.  

I wish I would have understood this concept when my kids were younger. I believe helping children understand that learning a skill will allow them to add value, not increase their worth. Here is an example of what I mean.

The star on the paper for a job well done will not make me love you more. You are already 100 worthy of my love. The star on the paper shows you that you understood and learned the skill, and the incomplete on the paper means you can learn more from it and do it again. The kid with the star is not better than the ones with the incomplete. This just lets you know that you see things and learn things differently than others on this subject.  

Complementary not Competing 

Both worth and Value are important from different perspectives. In other words, they are not competing factors but complementary. This means, you don’t need to fix yourself to be more worthy and you can add value to what you find to be valuable. You don’t have to change if you love where you are, but you can love where you are and choose to change.