Story: The Old Car (Source: Medium)
A father told his daughter “You have graduated with honours, here is a car I bought many years ago. It is pretty old now. But before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them I want to sell it and see how much they offer you for it.”
The daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father and said, “They offered me $1,000 because they said it looks pretty worn out.”
The father said, now “Take it to the pawn shop.” The daughter went to the pawn shop, returned to her father and said,” The pawn shop offered only $100 because it is an old car.”
The father asked his daughter to go to a car club and show them the car. The daughter then took the car to the club, returned it, and told her father, “Some people in the club offered $100,000 for it because it’s an iconic car and is sought by many collectors!”
Moral of the Story:
Now the father said this to his daughter, “The right place values you the right way. If you are not valued, do not be angry, it means you are in the wrong place. Those who know your value are those who appreciate you…Never stay in a place where no one sees your value.”
Never stay, move on…
What is the meaning of Your Worth?
Very often we question our Worth (who we are). We start interrogating what we have done so far and what we could have done till now. When we start thinking about our Worth, many times, the focus is on what we could have done rather than balancing it with what we have done and what we could have done.
Constant analysis is important as it helps us to identify our core strengths and areas of improvement. The more we do self-examination, the better we are in terms of our self-worth and possible gaps.
Why it is Important to Identify our Worth?
From morning to evening, we make many decisions and the majority of them prove to be right. On average, there may be one or two choices, which may not have gone in our favour. How often it happens that we rejoice in our successes and work on our improvement areas? In general, we consider our successes to be normal and our failures as a reflection of our self-worth. Like,
- we drive safely to the office,
- we reach the office on time,
- we do our work diligently,
- we appreciate our colleagues for their work,
- Our investment in the share market soars,
- we spend quality time with our family.
But there may be a few instances wherein our boss may not be happy with our work or someone may have written something nasty on our Facebook post, we lose money in the stock market, and we take these a little more seriously. Sometimes we do commit mistakes or our decisions do not prove to be useful for the organization or personal life.
How often do we take these aberrations in our stride and balance our analysis based on the good and not-so-good results? Rather than giving a pat on our back for the wonderful day, we pick those one or two instances and cloud our minds with negative thoughts. We do need to ponder on the decisions which did not go in our favour but why take it as an indication of our self-value?
If we see on a broader level at our last 20, 30, 40 odd years, what kind of image we have created for ourselves? May be,
- loser,
- lacks the drive,
- does not have that killer instinct,
- never fulfils the set goals,
- never on time,
- speak lies,
- do not understand numbers,
- cannot be trusted and much more.
But if you look into the number of instances which may have forced you to think like that and compare it with the things that you have done successfully, it will be less than 10%!
Why do 10% of incidents rule our lives rather than 90% of successes? By focusing entirely on these 10% instances, are we making our life peaceful or we are creating a barrier to our happiness?
What to do?
People are different and they will continue to share their thoughts which may or may not align with our mindset. We need to pick up feedback which is shared with good intentions and avoid giving much importance to people who comment due to their insecurity and lack of understanding.
Apart from the external validation, giving importance to our self-belief and conviction can add much more strength to our self-value. The following are the 3 key ways to enhance it.
- Many people write dairies where they describe what they did. Our lives are becoming more complex. Writing a journal is an excellent opportunity to record the positives of the day and uncomplicate our thoughts.
- Before going to sleep and immediately after waking rather than starting the day with the mobile phone, we can recall about all the sweet moments of the day and how we contributed to our family, office and society. Being mindful to do it every day may take some time and focus but it is an excellent way to start and end our day.
Someone has rightly said that “Important is not the destination but the journey and people with you”. How often we thank our family, how often we celebrate our little successes (getting 100 likes on our post, walking 10000 steps etc.). The more thank our family and friends, the higher will be our self-image. Often, we wait for big success (which may come in months and years) but the beauty of life lies in these nuggets of life.
In summary, focusing on the positives and celebrating small achievements is the right step to build a higher net worth.