22 - Your Worth Isn’t in the Win

I heard a phrase a while ago and I don’t know the author of it, but it was something like - You’re not the culmination of all the worst things you’ve ever done, and you’re also not the culmination of all the great things you’ve ever done.

When I mentioned a couple of days ago why it was so important to detach emotionally from the end outcome, this is what I meant.

If your worth is based on the great results you get from the things you try for then what about the times where it doesn’t work out?

We so easily place our worth in the win. We feel validated when things that we work hard on work out. Success is affirming. 

But if success alone affirms us, then what happens when we fail? By that train of thought, failure doesn’t just mean the plan failed, it means we are failures.

But if we are going to get away from emotionally attaching to the outcome of what we work for and we aren’t the culmination of the best or worst of us, then we have to get away from finding our value in the times where we win or lose.

In some ways, it makes sense to feel validated by wins. We’d like to believe that it means we are finally getting life right or we are headed in the right direction. That argument is hard to dismantle until you work hard for something and don’t get it.

I’m not talking about the small failures we all experience along the way, I’m talking about the ventures we throw our heart and soul into. The ones that mean the most to us. Because they mean so much, they can do the most damage when they don’t work out.

The meaning we attach to experiences and the stories that we tell ourselves about what they mean shapes our mental health and self-esteem. 

Tell yourself a story about what a failure you are and how things just don’t seem to work out for you time and time again with all the past experiences stacked up as evidence and you’ll find yourself going down a dark rabbit hole of debilitating disillusionment. 

We have a very important choice to make in the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences. If the stories devalue us or attach our worth to an outcome we’ve gotten into dangerous territory. 

As you finish reading this - I would encourage you to think of what is going wrong in your life right now and evaluate the story that’s forming for you. What meaning are you attaching to how you process your life right now? 

Is it good or bad or nuanced?

My encouragement as your friend, is to make sure you see your value outside of the wins as well as the times where life didn’t work out the way you had once hoped.

You are more than the culmination of everything that has gone wrong and more than the culmination of everything that has gone right.

As hard as it might be in the moment of your despair or frustration over what doesn’t seem to be working out, remind yourself of the value you carry outside of all the piled up evidence that would condemn you for your current state of affairs.

Your value doesn’t rise and fall with outcomes.

It’s in Christ and it’s steady, rooted, and secure. Keep showing up, keep learning, and keep going.