61: Your Worth Isn’t Earned—It’s Already Yours

So many of us unknowingly tie our worth to what we do—our achievements, our callings, even how our kids turn out. But the truth is, self-worth and self-confidence are not the same thing—and if we don’t understand the difference, we’ll keep chasing external validation that never quite fills the gap.

In this episode, we’re diving into:
✔️ The difference between self-worth and self-confidence
✔️ Why external achievements (like temple recommend worthiness, appearance, or service) don’t define your inherent worth
✔️ How perfectionism is just an attempt to "earn" self-worth—and why that never works
✔️ A powerful mindset shift that separates your worthiness from your actions

💡 You don’t have to do more, be more, or achieve more to be worthy. You already are.

If this episode resonates, share it with another missionary mom or friend who needs this reminder. And if you’re working on shifting your self-worth, tag me on Instagram—I’d love to hear how this is landing for you!

#MissionaryMoms #SelfWorth #YouAreEnough #LDSLife #Worthy

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Transcript

0:29

Hello, and welcome to the podcast today. I have been working on this episode for quite a while. I think it's because it's something that I have been working on personally, and I really want to be able to share it with you. So we're talking that we're talking about something that I think so many people wrestle with and that's self worth versus self confidence. So they're not the same thing. And if we don't understand the difference, we can sometimes end up chasing things outside of us to try to feel worthy when in reality, we already are. And here's the kicker has nothing to do. With what we do or we don't do and so I think that in our culture It's very key to like do a separation here So if you've ever felt like your worth was tied to your achievements your callings your weight How many temple recommend questions you can answer with a resounding? Yes, or even how your kids are turning out? This episode is for you So let's dive into the difference between self worth and self confidence. So self confidence comes from doing things. It's built by evidence and experience. And you gain confidence by learning, by practicing, by failing, improving. You can gain self confidence in areas and then you can start all over in a new area. So an example just from the missionary standpoint is A missionary can become confident in teaching after a lot of lessons. A speaker gains confidence after delivering many talks. You can become confident in the guitar after a lot of lessons and a lot of practice and a lot of time. It's based on proof, things outside of you that can be measured. This is how you build self confidence. Sometimes you can build self confidence by trying things like red lipstick that you can start putting yourself outside of your comfort zone. That builds self confidence. Self worth is who you are at your core. It's innate. You were born with it. It doesn't increase when you succeed or decrease when you fail. So an example is A baby doesn't do anything to earn their worthiness. It's worthy of love and so are you. So you can have self confidence in certain areas and still struggle with self worth. That's why achieving more doesn't make you feel more worthy if you're already doubting your worth. And sometimes a lot of this happens very subconsciously. You don't even really know what's happening. So, let me give you a couple of examples of things that I have done in my life trying to create self worth and ultimately did not work. I got breast implants thinking that I would feel like enough, that I would be cute enough, I would be pretty enough. I have exercised and I used to exercise. Purely for the way that I looked because I thought if I weighed a certain amount, I lifted a certain amount that I would feel better about myself. I tried to earn my my worth and in the end, none of that worked. So many of us unknowingly chase self worth. With external achievements, being the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect Relief Society president. This is where perfectionist lives. Perfectionism is trying to create self worth through something. outside of yourself, getting praise for being selfless and serving and doing all the things, getting fit, looking a certain way, dressing a certain way, checking all the boxes at your temple, recommend questions, making sure you're studying your scripture. You don't miss church. And yet. If we don't truly believe that we are worthy, just as we are, none of those things will ever feel like enough. And why doesn't that work? Why it should, right? We should feel better from doing those because worthiness. This isn't earned. It just is because if you don't believe you're worthy at your core, you'll keep moving the goalpost every time that you achieve something and you'll never actually hit the target. Here's the realization. I thought if I just did enough, if I achieved enough, if I looked good enough, people would approve of me and then I'd finally feel worthy, but that's a game you never win. So let's separate out some of the. The temple recommend questions for worthiness from our self worth and our innate. So this is a sticking point in our culture, the idea that our worthiness is somehow tied to our ability to answer Temple recommend questions with a perfect score. I don't know anybody who goes in there and just feels amazing. I know people that go in and they're like, fine with it, but I know a lot of people that are like, I'm trying. I'm trying. So here's the truth. The temple recommend questions help assess our spiritual commitments and covenants, but they do not define our worthiness as a human being. They help assess if we're prepared to go to the temple and do certain things, but they don't assess our worthiness. So think about this. If someone lost their temple recommend due to struggles with like, say the word of wisdom. Does that mean they're less worthy of love, grace, or belonging? Absolutely not. Just like our eternal worth isn't determined by our body size, our income, or our achievements, it also isn't determined by our ability to be perfect in the gospel. You are worthy because you exist, because you're a child of God, not because of what you do or don't do. And this really hit home for me when I was watching a movie, I may have mentioned this before. The Free State of Jones with Matthew McConaughey, and there's all these guys that are kind of hiding out and it's during the war and they're hiding out in the South and they're, there's a bunch of deserters from the Confederacy. And then there's a bunch of escaped slaves and the deserters were starting to treat these escaped slaves like. They were above them and, Matthew McConaughey and in his role, he says to one of the men, he said, how do you know that a man cannot be owned by another man? And this black guy says, because I'm a child of God. And it's not because of anything he did. It's not anything to do with his skin color. It's because he exists and because he's worthy. To exist. And so this is like for me. This was such a game changer I had sabotaged so many areas of my life because I would get to a certain point. I'd sabotaged Subconsciously jobs I'd sabotaged my weight I'd sabotaged though my intentions of wanting to you know, feel good about my body and look good and I I sabotage callings. I, I showed up in ways that I didn't really want to show up, but all of that came from inside of me where I didn't feel like I was enough and being able to separate. And know the difference is so key and this is so key for our kids when they're serving missions that their worth isn't tied to actions outside of themselves. So if worthiness isn't earned, how do we start to feel worthy? So here's three shifts that you can work on. Number one, you want to shift your inner narrative instead of I'm only worthy when I'm doing everything right. And try on, I was born worthy, my worth is constant, even when I struggle. I'm just going to do a little scripture connection here in Moses 1, 4 it says, behold thou art my son. Or daughter. He doesn't say only if you're perfect. He says you are. Number two, recognize that worthiness isn't something that's earned. It's something to accept. Think about how you talk to your kids. Would you ever tell them you're only worthy if you're perfect? No, of course you wouldn't. The same is true for you. I've been recently learning, learning more about this in a book by Jamie Kern Lima. And one of the things that she says is you cannot earn worth. You can only decide to believe in it. So let's stop waiting for external validation. You don't need someone else's approval. You don't need a leadership calling or even perfectly lived day to be worthy. Your worth is independent of all of it. So something else to remember, my worth isn't, isn't something I can achieve. It's something I can accept. And today I choose to believe. One other just short example that I want to share is, and I mentioned this in one of my other episodes about when I was really on a faith struggle, trying hard to come back to the church, but I just wasn't there yet. And, but I was trying to hustle so that I could go to the temple with my son and I was praying about it and it just laid right on my heart. And I, and I know that this is, it's what I needed to hear, and hopefully this is what somebody else needed, needs to hear as well. It was, You are okay exactly where you are today and like as I've thought about that and I've kind of wrestled with this idea of self worth and self confidence I realized that how many times do we think that we will be better off if we just get to a certain place if If I could have just got to the temple faster if I could have just believed all Harder if I could have just paid enough tithing if I could have just done all the things Had no word of wisdom issues all the things but what if my worth has nothing to do with that? what if my worth is just innate because I am a daughter of God and My missionary is of worth because he is a son of God What if that is a thing? And if you can start to open your mind and really embrace that concept in that idea It will change your life as soon as I started to understand that and I and I started to understand like how perfectionism is Somebody trying to gain self worth. I could see all of the outside areas that I was trying to get gain at validation from either somebody or something Or just even myself. I know that as I like years ago. I I even started to sabotage my marriage in different ways. Because I never felt like I was enough. And I would tell my husband, you could tell me a hundred times a day that you love me and it wouldn't be enough. And what I realized is that that all comes. From external validation and what happens is that what I said was correct He could have said it a hundred times a day and it would never be enough because I never believed that I was enough I never believed that I was a value and so being able to set that aside and really see like no matter what I have value. No matter what my struggles are, I am worth it. I, my, my worthiness doesn't change. And that is separate from Temple Recommend questions. Those are all actions. And I don't love the question, are you worthy? I love the idea of, are you prepared? Are you ready to make these commitments? And so just that little shift in mindset for me really helped. Give me a little bit more grace, a little bit more humanity, a little bit more room to be messy human that is trying, but ultimately is falling short and knowing that God knew all of that prior to sending me to earth and that I don't have to be. Anybody else but me the other one little piece of this narrative that was really hard for me was there was situations that I was in especially as a mother where People would say, you know the question like what would Jesus do? And I remember getting kind of angry about that question because I was like, I don't know and Jesus was never a mom So I I I don't know what he would do and how he would deal with that Teenagers that are you know, just having a free for all like I don't know and I realized that I Even though I want to do better and I want to be better. I don't ever have to be Christ So like what would Jesus do or let's try and be more like him I think there's attributes that innately come in from inside of us and They're worthy of pursuit, but I think the idea of trying to be somebody we're not is not worthy of pursuit. And so I think that God loves me just as I am. Where I'm at in all of my struggles and all of the messiness, I believe he loves me and he doesn't want me to be somebody else. He wants me to be the best, very best version of me and I can't do that if I'm trying to be Somebody else or show up in a way that isn't really true to who I am and that I have value and that what I have to offer in life has value and you have value too. That is something that is given to us just because we exist. And so this was such a. It was a huge turning point for me and it also allowed me really to be able to open up more to having faith and believing that God was real because it allowed me to be me without having to try and pretend to be something I wasn't and that he loved me no matter what. In all of my messy human mistakes and all of my messiness and no matter where I was on my, on my path, that he loved me no matter what. And we are okay exactly where we are. And not only are we okay, but we're loved. And our kids are too. They know Heavenly Father knows us. And we are okay. Our kids are enough. Everything that's happening is not happening to them. It's happening for them. And I just feel like this is such a key change in the way that we think. And if you have enjoyed this episode, if you think this is interesting, make sure you share it, but also consider reading the book. Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima. It was fantastic read, and it's, she's not LDS but it applies to us so much, and I see so many people struggling with this and so many people talking about their worthiness or the lack of their, you know, worthiness and having it be an an action as opposed to just innate. All right, you guys, I hope you have enjoyed this episode. I hope, I really hope this has helped you. I would love to hear from you. You can always tag me on social media. I hang out mainly on Instagram, occasionally on Facebook for, but for the most part, I'm on Instagram we'll see you next week. Bye bye.