Develop Self-Worth as Part of Your Daily Practice
14 February 2023
Developing and reinforcing your own self-worth is something that takes time and consistency. To uphold your level of self-worth and prevent yourself from falling victim to becoming depleted within and lose your personal self-values, you need to maintain a daily practice of journaling.
Journaling is a fantastic way to build your self-values as it allows for you to review what your self-beliefs are on a regular basis and how you see yourself. It’s a well-established practice in therapy and psychology, and it works equally well for children and adults. Journaling can be in the format of art or writing or a collage or even a combination of all these formats.
There is a range of prompts to help you get over the fear looking at a blank page in the journal and not knowing what to write, or to help you get over those ‘um, I don’t know’ moments. The following ideas below provide a few suggestions, but once you get into the swing of journaling, the ideas will flow!
You can make it easier to break-through the ‘bashful barrier’ if you find it hard to find positive things to say - you can start at the back of the journal and work forward, write in a spiral or turn your book sideways or upside-down.
Write in your happiest memories and include photos of parties, holidays and loved ones. You can make timelines of the best days in your life that make you feel proud of yourself, like graduation, your first job, your first solo car trip. Work over a series of pages or try fold-out pages, make double-spreads, include photos as well.
You can use affirmations to remind yourself of your positive traits, for example:
I am kind because…
I am good at…
People really like my…
I’m proud I can…
I am loved by…
I feel good when…
Try thinking of three things your ‘Inner Critic’ finds fault with and consciously turn them around – write down the positive in your journal right next to the critical answer you just made. You can use your journal as a way of visualising your goals – what do you want to achieve, feel or do today, this week, by Christmas? Make a list and put an estimated date of completion next to each. This will give you some goals to reach for with a due date by each that will give you a deadline as a goal to reach for each one. If the date is superseded, then just change the date to a new future date.
You can also make your journal a beautiful object – go to an art store and buy your favorite colors in a range of media – pencils, watercolors, collage papers, stamps. Use glitter, stickers, puff paints – you can go wild and treat your inner child. Your journal book about you will reflect all the colors within. Or maybe you’d prefer something more minimalist – make your journal a thing of monochrome beauty, use lovely rich Japanese inks, textured papers, graphite. Experiment with pens, pencils, and brushes – see how many different lines you can make.
Make journaling a happy activity that brings about a reconnection to your self-worth each day. Something that you enjoy working on and reading. And then when you do have times when you’re not feeling so good about yourself, you have a tangible object to look at to defeat your ‘Inner Critic’ and allows for you to continue your day feeling uplifted.
