Written by The traditional way of understanding Self-worth
According to Merriam-Websters dictionary, Self-worth is a sense of one’s own value as a human being. Self-worth can be different at different stages of life. More often than not self-worth is deducted based on the people around us in different phases of our life. If you are a student, it is deducted from your GPA scores, if you are a sportsman/woman it comes from the gauge of your expertise in your sport. If you are a business person, it comes from your wealth and the positions you hold, if you are an employee, your worth is measured based on the compensation you get and so on.
However, this is a broken way of looking at your self-worth. Everyone is in their own game of life and no one can be compared with others considering we come from different backgrounds, situations and up-bringings. You would see a clear difference in the self-worth of siblings who were brought up in the same home but are not always in the same social group, do not with the same goals and aspirations and do not with similar thought processes.
Most of the time people only talk about self-worth in the present tense and try to work on immediate fixes by looking at the people they are surrounded with. It’s like we don’t know where we want to go, and then we are left with no option but to follow others. I remember in the past, I did some certifications and courses which really didn’t help me much and I was doing it anyway thinking that might help improve my self-worth. I have seen many others who did the same and are doing the same even now. The problem is that no one clearly explained the concept of self-worth and how to work on improving it, which is very unfortunate. Let’s get a better view of understanding self-worth in a manner that even a child can understand this concept and grow along while minding this formula and working towards it. Having the best possible understanding of this concept can help us lead to a better way of building a strategy to work on ourselves to more resourcefulness which itself is self-worth.
A better & a useful way of understanding
The present Self-worth is clearly based on your past deeds or achievements. The deed we did in the past investing our time and effort in doing something has created a positive or negative impact on others around us. This explanation gives us all the parameters which can help us formulate the concept of self-worth. The reason, I want wan to present this in a mathematical equation is that, when we know the variables in the equation, we can determine what are controllable variables and what are non-controllable variables. This gives us the flexibility to build our strategy to improve our self-worth can easily be planned and executed. This concept is directly related to a concept called Value-Based Thinking, which we will talk about in detail in the following article.
Self-worth doesn’t always have to be gauged on a scale, even though it is possible when you measure in scores or individual net worth. We don’t have any scale for many people like our freedom fighters’ contributions people like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi etc., as it gets difficult to measure their contributions toward their nation. So, there are a few other things that we will consider when we try to understand Self-worth more closely and in a meaningful way.
Self-worth can be measured using a few arbitrary parameters as shown in the above formulation. Based on this, we can only be determined Self-worth(Sw) for people who are aligned with some goals. There is no need or value for us to gauge the self-worth of a person who has no goal or desire and not working toward any progress. In fact with the above formula, we are indirectly calculating the resourcefulness of an individual which can be shown as self-worth. If we have to write an equation for self-worth in mathematical terms, it can be like this
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru!
In a simple definition, the ability that one builds to serve a maximum number of people/consumers with a constant focus on improving skillset and delivering the value possible to achieve the goal with self-confidence & persistence.
Self-Worth(Sw) = ((Goal+Self confident & Persistence) (Time of Efforts) + (No. of People being served directly by your efforts)) X (Resourceful or Upskilling Time)
- Self-Worth(Sw) Value between 0 to infinity points(0 being extremely low self-worth and 205 being extremely high self-worth like Elon Musk)
- Goal(G) — One of the values is 0, 0.5, 1 ( 0 being no Long term Goal, 0.5 being a short-term goal and 1 being a Very focused Long Term goal)
- Self-confident & Persistence (Scp) Values between 0 to 1( 0 being Not self-confident/persistent and 1 being Confident Enough & being persistent)
- Time of Efforts (Te) Value between 1 to 10 ( No. of hours of effort)
- No. of People (Nps) being served by creating value directly by your time & efforts — Value between 0 to 7 billion (No. of paying customers)
- Resourceful or Upskilling Time (Tru) Value between 1 to 8( No. of hrs in a day spent on upskilling or making self a resourceful person by learning/practising something)
Case 1: A person with no goal, no efforts for future planning and upskilling and who is able to serve only 1 person by offering value for the payer by doing some work will have almost Zero self-worth, since the role is easily replaceable.
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru = ((0+1)0+1)0! = 1
Case 2: A person who is working as a security guard at a bungalow, has a short-term goal (0.5), which is 100% self-confidence that he can do that job(1) and he works for 8 hrs a day, and he serves for his Manager(the owner of the house) 1 person who is paying him, and “Tru†will 1 since he can master whatever he is going and gains experience and expertise. In this case, the Equation will become:
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru = ((0.5+1)8+1)1! = 13
Case 3: A student who is working is working part-time, has a short-term goal (0.5), which is 100% self-confidence that he can do that job(1) and he works for 4hrs a day part-time, and he serves his manager(the owner of the business or boss) 1 person who is paying him, and “Tru can be 5 in this case as he is studying and not workingâ€. In this case, the Equation will become:
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru! = ((0.5+1)4+1)5! = 840
Case 4: An employee who is working is working full time, has a short-term goal (1), which is 100% self-confidence that he can do that job(1) and he works for 12hrs a day, and he serves his manager(the owner of the business or boss) 1 person who is paying him, and “Tru will be 4 in this case as he is studyingâ€. In this case, the Equation will become:
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru = ((1+1)12+1)4! = 600
Case 5: A small-scale businessman who is working is working full time, has a short-term goal (1), which is 100% self-confidence that he can do that job(1) and he works for 12hrs a day, and he serves around 1000 paying customers, and “Tru can be 2 in this case as he is studyingâ€. In this case, the Equation will become:
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru! = ((1+1)12+1000)2! = 2048
Case 6: A person like Elon Musk who is working is working full time, has a long-term goal (1), with almost 100% self-confidence that he can do that job(1) and works for 14 hrs a day, and he aims to serve the masses as the owner of the business who is paying himself, and “Tru will be 4 in this case as he is studyingâ€. In this case, the Equation will become:
Sw=((G+Scp)Te+NPs)Tru! = ((1+1)14+10000000)4! = 240000672.
And it keeps growing as he builds value for so many people and keeps increasing his size of paying client groups through his different ventures. This is the reason, just one tweet of Elon can change the fate of many people. This we have seen on Cryptocurrency, Twitter and other stock price fluctuations making people rich to poor and poor to rich. All this is possible because he was able to work and build that self-worth. Not only in the monetary sense but also in knowledge, experience-wise.
The 2 Variables of Self-Worth Equation
Which can multiply your future Self-worth equation
This is the most exciting part of learning about self-worth through UpSkillShare. Your current state of self-worth can not change overnight as it is the function of your past achievements. We have zero control over present self-worth, we only can control our future self-worth.
- No. of People can be served.
- “Truâ€-Time of Resourcefulness and Upskilling
- No. of People can be served:
The ability we built in the past to be able to serve the no. of people around us. Imagine yourself being in a profession that can serve multiple people, not by their job but using their self-interest. There are many doctors who are not that right and there are many other doctors who are rich, it all comes from the skillset they acquire with their experience. However, there is a limitation of the self-worth capacity in terms of monetary value for almost all doctors unless they are industrialists who were able to build their plants on medicine or research etc.,
Also the earning capacity of doctors, lawyers, and people who work as public servants as a part of their job as Govt. Employees again will have limitations unless they are engaged in any other source of offering value. This is also because these offerings will be used only need basis and their won’t be a regular or repeat customer concept.
Coming to the other side, top people in different industries like entertainment, fashion, politics, media, and other businesses all of these professions have no limit and they can keep building their wealth since they directly serve a maximum number of people within their scope and this number is much more than what a doctor, lawyer, the public servant can serve. But industries like entertainment etc., are not need-based. They will be consumed by the masses together. This brings the value of repeated paying customers value is very high. Regular Job holders bring maximum monetary benefit to the employer as a job holder can be replaced easily or just serving a few sections of the society who will be served like Doctors, Lawyers, and Public servants who can also be replaced with some difficulty.
So, the bottom line is, if you want to be build a huge self-worth to focus on skillset which serves maximum number of people around you in the society and you should become irriplacable or not easily replaceable.
2. “Truâ€-Time of Resourcefulness and Upskilling:
This is the next important variable that can change the entire equation and the result is “Truâ€-Time of Resourcefulness and Upskilling. This completes the equation of self-worth and brings you the possibility of multiplying your self-worth by multiple folds. Time of Resourcefulness is the only factor we have full control of.
This is mainly because of our effort in learning & execution in the past. Any time between up to 5 hrs that you spend upskilling yourself, learning or practising what you want to master will be Time for resourceful & upskilling. So, keeping your future self in mind (5 yrs from now or 10 yrs from now) if you are in your present time work towards your goals with constant efforts and keep yourself working and upskilling to handle the changes in the course of your journey will make a drastic impact in the way you improve your self-worth. Keeping yourself self-upskilling about the industry happenings and all the required information will fetch a lot of advantages in making changes in other variables like the number of people you can serve and the value you can bring.
Start working on your self-worth & resourcefulness based on the idea shared by keeping all the parameters in the formula. Check which category you belong to or the people around you. See, understand think and then decide where you want to be and what parameters you need to work on. Based on this you will be able to build your self-worth easily in a year or two as this needs a lot of dedication and practice. All the best.
Looking forward to joining Upskillshare.com to make sure you acquire all the relevant knowledge for you to make yourself a more resourceful person by improving your soft skills, thinking abilities and many other essential lessons for free on our youtube collection courses.