While growing up, we were taught to connect our self-worth to our achievements. For example, when you receive good grades from school, you will receive some praises. If you get a good job or get promoted at your office, people will celebrate you. While these things are good, but it can also make one to begin to think that they are valuable because they are successful. This makes a lot of people to tie their entire identity to their work, their achievements, their business, projects, etc. When these things go well, you will see yourself as a true achiever, but the moment any of them goes wrong, it may negatively decline your self-esteem, because your entire worth is already tied to them. In order to build and live a happier life, you have to learn to separate your personal worth from your work.
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There is a friend of mine who is a chef, and she is very good with cooking. She started a restaurant business and was doing well in it. She spent about 5 years building her dream restaurant. She committed herself so much to it that she would even miss out on social events because of it, because she worked more than 12 hours daily. Anytime people ask her why she was doing that, she would always respond that the restaurant is her life. People around knew the place and they enjoyed her meal, which also made her to feel like her entire life was revolving around the restaurant. She quickly attached her worth to the success of the restaurant. Well, things were going well until a major restructuring happened. The government that came into power mapped some structures for demolition because they did not follow the capital territory plan. Sadly, her restaurant was among them.
This made her life to be completely crushed. She thought that her life was over, because everything she had was centered on being a successful restaurant owner. When the restaurant was gone, she felt like she had no value again. She spent her time hiding at home, thinking that she did not have any value again, and months passed. One day, I had to pay her a visit and talked with her. I reminded her that she was first a very talented chef before she became a restaurant owner. I told her that even though her business closed down, but her talent and her love for food did not close down. So I encourage her to pick herself up and do something. So she started a food video blog right inside her kitchen. It started growing. Now she has thousands of followers and even running ads on her blog and making money. She was able to separate her worth from a specific business.
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When someone mixes their identity with their job, their life may begin to look like a roller coaster. If a clients rejects their idea for example, they may begin to think that they are bad, or that they have failed. Or if their business suffers a setback, they may not even see it as a temporary setback, but they may begin to see it as a permanent failure. This is the negative effect of allowing your work to become your worth. This is one of the things that put people under intense pressure, anxiety and stress. When people begin to see failure as a total loss of their human value, they will begin to look for the safest path. This also means that they will not take risks because of fear of failure. And without taking risks, progress may be limited.
It is worthy to note that you need to separate your worth from your work. But to achieve this, you have to invest on other aspects of your life. Imagine if a table has only one leg, and the leg gets broken, the entire table will fall to the ground. This is the same things that happens when someone's work becomes their only source of identity. This is why you need to channel your time and resources, and invest in other aspects of your life. Invest in your health, in your family, your community, in a hobby, etc. Have a life outside your office and outside your work. Trust me, if you have a good life outside your office for example, a single bad day at work will not ruin your life. Remember that you are worth more than where you are now.
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