Self-Worth: Knowing Your Value
In over twenty years of coaching leaders and organisations around the world, I’ve sat across from CEOs who couldn’t say no to a meeting and mothers who couldn’t say no to anyone at all, and I’ve learnt this: almost every problem that walks through my door wearing a different disguise — burnout, a bad relationship, a career that’s stalled — is actually the same problem underneath. It’s not a time problem or a communication problem. It’s a worth problem. Somewhere along the way, my client stopped believing they deserved better, and everything else in their life rearranged itself around that one belief.
I’ve written seven books on personal development and leadership, and if there’s one thread that runs through all of them, it’s this: self-worth is the operating system running underneath every decision you make — what you tolerate, what you walk away from, how hard you fight for your own peace. Get it right, and you protect your health, your time, your standards without a second thought. Get it wrong, and you find yourself over-giving, over-apologising, accepting treatment from others — and from yourself — that you’d never accept on behalf of someone you loved.
Three Practices That Change Everything
Three practices that have consistently delivered the most powerful results — more than anything else I’ve seen in two decades of this work:
1. Keep Your Word to Yourself
Not the big dramatic promises — the small ones. The workout you said you’d do. The hour you set aside to read. Self-trust is built exactly the way trust with anyone else is: one kept commitment at a time, and I’ve watched it transform boardrooms and living rooms alike.
2. Build Boundaries, Not Walls
A boundary isn’t rejection — it’s information. It tells the world what you need to stay well. Saying no to what drains you is the only way to make real room for what is important.
3. Bet on Your Own Growth
Read the book. Take the course. Hire the coach. Every hour you invest in yourself sends a message you eventually can’t ignore: I am worth this.
Here’s the question I ask every client, from first-time founders to seasoned executives, and I’ll ask you the same one: Where have you been settling for less than you’d accept on behalf of someone you love? Pick one place. Change it this week.
WISDOM: You teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself.
Affirmations
🧡 I recognise my value and honour my worth.
🧡 My wellbeing matters, and I prioritise it without guilt.
🧡 I deserve healthy, respectful relationships.
🧡 I invest in myself because I am worth it.