What's the difference between self-esteem and self-worth?

These two closely related yet contrasting hyphenated words appear to mean roughly the same thing at first glance. However, as I go beyond the surface in this piece and delve a little bit deeper, we will begin to comprehend how very different they actually are.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem can be defined as a favourable impression of oneself. 

It can be linked to pride, and for some is based on personal and professional achievements such as getting a good job, physical abilities, relationships, good looks and youth.

As our self-esteem battery can be charged by an external power source (other people’s opinion of us), the build of it is more immediate, but can change from moment to moment. Factors which can affect this include (as examples) how we look in the morning, where we went on holiday or where we went for dinner.

The reality is that self-esteem - without self-worth - can be short-lived. Self-esteem is too easily influenced to be a portion of oneself that you can rely on. That's where self-worth comes in. 

What is self-worth?

Self-worth is your own sense of your value, being 'good enough', and deserving of things - simply because you exist, rather than because of your achievements. 

The sense of self-worth is internally generated and is not easily crushed once attained. 

Self-worth remains unaffected by the increase or decrease of self-esteem as it is a sense of one’s own value and worth as a well-intentioned human being. Self-worth usually remains intact regardless of how others view us, our successes or our failures. Ofcourse, there are scenarios in which our self-esteem can be so impacted, that we begin to have lesser confidence in ourself (reducing self-worth) - however the two are not completely connected, and self-worth is a more reliable self-assessment. 

Self-esteem alone tends to present a constant battle between being ourselves and being who we think others want us to be. Self-worth nurtures and strengthens our authentic self, in the full knowledge that we are far more than the sum of our apparent personal and professional achievements.  

Self-worth is more stable and sustaining and is based upon how much we feel we ‘deserve’ something based entirely on what we have achieved on our own merit or a contribution we may have made to our environment and society. 

How to build your self-worth

In a time where social media and materialism is rife, it can be easy to get carried away in the seeking of self-esteem and suffering when we don’t receive that external validation from others or ‘our moment passes’. 

Instead, we would do well to focus on building our self-worth which is, in fact, an element of basic human value, a driving force to well-being. When we give self-worth this focus and energy, we no longer have to fear it being diminished by external forces as we have our own inbuilt authentication.

Once a comfortable level of self-worth is achieved, challenges life presents us with and  negative looks and words from others are unlikely to have the same profound impact on our sense of self as they once did.