When your own worth hangs on performance
On the difference between wanting to do something well and needing to feel good about yourself through performance.
You have had a good day. The work is done, someone praised what you did, and you got through more than you had set out to.
Even so, you are already thinking about what is still waiting tomorrow.
Or you get critical feedback and notice how quickly something in you shifts. A moment ago you were content with yourself. Now you are wondering whether you are good enough at all.
That is an important difference: is it about doing something well? Or do you need the good result in order to feel good about yourself?
When your self-worth is strongly tied to performance, ambition can quickly turn into pressure.
When performance decides how you see yourself
A success then does not only feel good. It confirms that you are capable, that you are enough, that you are on the right track.
A mistake, by contrast, carries quite a different weight.
A task takes longer than planned. You are criticised. You cannot concentrate. You get less done than usual. And “that did not go well today” quickly becomes:
I cannot do this.
I am not good enough.
Other people manage it.
I should have tried harder.
Your worth then hangs on something that is constantly changing: on performance, productivity and the recognition of others.
I rarely hear it put as plainly as that. Usually it sounds more harmless, something like “I am just ambitious”. Only when we look more closely does it turn out that it is not about the task at all, but about the question of what a failed day says about you as a person.
The problem is not that you have high standards. The problem arises where your self-worth depends on whether you meet them.
Then it is never quite enough.
One task is done, the next is already waiting. One goal is reached, the next is set. You are praised and can hardly take it in, because you are immediately thinking about what could have been better.
Perfectionism keeps this cycle going
From the outside perfectionism often looks like strength. People who set themselves very high standards are often reliable, thorough and committed.
In my work I regularly sit across from people who seem entirely composed on the outside and keep a list inside on which nothing is ever ticked off.
The price for that can be high.
You notice your mistakes above all. After a talk you think about the one sentence that did not come out right. After an exam the one mistake stays with you, although the result was good. After a conversation you go through again in your head what you said.
The ten things that worked recede into the background. That makes it hard to be satisfied with what you have done.
And when satisfaction is only ever allowed after the next good result, a rather exhausting cycle takes hold: perform, breathe out briefly, develop new standards, perform again.
When you want to please everyone
Your self-worth can also depend heavily on how other people react.
You do not want to disappoint anyone. So you say yes although you have no time. You take on responsibility that is not really yours. You think for a long time about how to say something without putting anyone out.
And if someone is actually dissatisfied, it may occupy you for days afterwards.
Then it is no longer only about whether your behaviour was appropriate. It is about you.
Am I a good person if someone is disappointed in me?
Am I still likeable if I put someone out?
What does it say about me if I do not manage everything?
Questions like these can create an enormous amount of pressure.
Stable self-worth feels different
Stable self-worth does not mean that criticism leaves you cold. Of course it may affect you when someone is dissatisfied with you. Of course you may be pleased about a success.
The difference lies in what happens afterwards.
A mistake stays a mistake. It does not become proof that you are not good enough as a person. A rejection does not mean that you are worthless. And a day on which you got little done does not automatically have to be a bad day.
That cannot simply be decided. If you have learned over years to measure your worth by performance and recognition, the pattern usually sits fairly deep.
That is why self-worth is not about telling yourself positive things all the time. It is about understanding why performance is so closely bound up with your own worth.
In conversations I almost always end up at the same four questions:
Where does the pressure come from?
What happens if you are not perfect?
Why is it so hard for you to disappoint someone?
And what do you fear if for once you do not function?
That is exactly what the Self-Worth Programme is about: self-doubt, perfectionism, pressure to perform and the question of how a more stable self-worth can come about, one that does not constantly depend on performance or on the recognition of others.
You do not have to earn your worth
Perhaps this is the hardest thought:
You are not worth more because you got a great deal done today. And you are not worth less because you got hardly anything done today.
Your performance may matter to you. You may be ambitious and be pleased about your successes.
But your worth as a person should not depend afresh every day on whether you have reached your own bar.