Click Here for Plain Text Version
Where My Worth Comes From
If your sense of worth depends on things outside you - performance, approval, being needed, never failing - then every slip becomes proof you're worthless, and the shame spiral spins faster. This worksheet looks at where you've been getting your value, and starts building a steadier kind: worth that comes from the inside and doesn't collapse every time you stumble.
Worth that depends on performance will always fail you: If your value rises and falls with how you're doing, you'll never be safe - because no one performs perfectly. Internal worth is the ground that holds even on your worst day.
Where I've been sourcing my worth
Tick where your sense of value has mostly come from.
- [ ] Achievement / performance
- [ ] Other people's approval
- [ ] Being needed or useful
- [ ] Looks, status, or money
- [ ] Never failing / being 'good'
- [ ] I'm honestly not sure I feel worth much at all
What happens to how I see myself when those external things slip?
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Building internal worth
Internal worth says you matter simply because you do - not because of what you produce or how others rate you. It's built slowly, through how you treat yourself and what you choose to believe.
If my worth didn't depend on performance or approval, what would I let myself believe about my value?
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
One way I could treat myself this week as if I already had worth:
______________________________________________
You don't earn your worth - you have it: Your value isn't a prize for good behavior, and it isn't revoked by a bad day. Building the felt sense of that takes time, but it's the foundation everything else in recovery stands on. You matter, including today.
Go deeper
Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.
- Shame, Self-Worth & Identity, from Sex Addiction Recovery. Shame ('I am bad') fuels compulsive behavior; guilt ('I did something') heals it.
- Relapse Prevention: Seeing the Warning Signs, from Sex Addiction Recovery. Relapse is a process, not an event.
- What It Was Protecting: Trauma, Attachment & Roots, from Sex Addiction Recovery. Compulsive sexual behavior often begins as a solution to cope with trauma, unmet attachment needs, and pain.