The Self-Worth Trap: How to Stop Chasing Validation and Start Living

Trigger Warning: This post contains content about suicide

Recently, the issue of self-worth came up in a conversation with a friend. Her daughter — a young adult — was devastated because a friend had taken her own life. I didn’t dig deeper into the reason the friend was driven to take such a drastic step, but I found myself wondering: What makes someone believe their life isn’t worth living? How do we end up questioning our own worth so deeply?

I, too, remember being confused as a teenager, wondering if I was good enough. While “ending it all” never crossed my mind, I did worry about whether I had it in me to be successful. I would relentlessly compare myself with my friends, classmates, and even celebrity achievers that the mainstream media would glorify, and then feel like I was always falling short.

I remember one particular evening when I was seventeen, sitting in my room after getting back my test results. I hadn’t failed, but I wasn’t at the top either. I stared at that paper and felt this sinking feeling — like I was somehow fundamentally lacking. It wasn’t just about the grade. It was as if that score was a verdict on who I was as a person. Looking back, it seems absurd that a teenage me would tie my entire identity to a number on a piece of paper, but at the time, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

And I wasn’t alone. Most in my peer group had similar doubts about their worth. We’d scrutinize everything — our grades, our looks, whether we made the sports team, whether the popular kids acknowledged us in the hallway. Tying our self-worth to our achievements was the norm and we had all bought into the belief that we had to prove ourselves to be worthy of this life. That was the message that was hammered into us—from well-meaning adults, from the world around us, and from a culture that equated worth with success.

The impact of that conditioning wasn’t small. We learned, wrongly of course, that striving and fitting in was the key to worthiness, that what we do, how much we achieve, and how others see us determine our value. Thus, pleasing the world became a lifelong struggle.

It Has Only Gotten Worse

It’s true that we had it tough growing up, but today’s young adults are arguably worse off than we were. They’re not just trying to meet the expectations of parents or teachers; they’re measuring themselves against impossible social media standards. Platforms like Instagram encourage people to showcase their best selves while hiding their struggles, creating a warped sense of what makes one worthy.

Let me ask you a question: when was the last time you saw someone post about their failure, their messy room, or their lonely Friday night? Instead, we see endless streams of vacation photos, career achievements, perfect relationships, and flawless appearances. It’s like being surrounded by highlight reels 24/7 while living your own behind-the-scenes reality.

I know a young woman who told me she spent hours each morning trying to recreate makeup looks she saw online, feeling frustrated when she couldn’t achieve that perfect, filtered appearance. She’d end up running late for work, feeling defeated before her day even began. “I look at these influencers,” she said, “and wonder what’s wrong with me that I can’t even get my eyeliner right.” The irony is that those “perfect” looks often involve professional lighting, multiple takes, and heavy editing. She was comparing her reality to someone else’s manufactured image and, in the process, her self-worth was suffering a blow.

This is phenomenon has not even spared adults, who have fallen deep into this algorithm-driven rabbit hole of social media, making youngsters of today believe that this is what life is about. When parents are constantly curating their own online presence or making comments about others’ posts, children absorb the message that life is a performance to be judged. Is it any surprise then that these impressionable souls feel so lost?

Here’s what I would like to tell all those who are wrestling with doubts about their life and their self-worth.

Ideas of Worthiness Are Arbitrary

The world tells us that our worth depends on things like our wealth, our social status, our appearance, or whether we’re seen as successful in love or life. But these ideas of worthiness are arbitrary. They are products of cultural narratives and shifting societal norms.

Consider how drastically these standards have changed even within our lifetimes. My grandmother’s generation measured a woman’s worth primarily by her ability to maintain a household and raise children. Then came the era where women had to prove they could “have it all” — career, family, perfect appearance, and social life. Now, there’s pressure to be an entrepreneur, have a side hustle, maintain an aesthetic social media presence, and practice self-care perfectly, all while being environmentally conscious and politically aware.

What was considered successful twenty years ago might seem quaint today. What’s trending now will likely be passé in a decade even as we keep trying to hit standards that shift faster than we can keep up.

And what happens when we falter on any of these measures? When our careers hit a rough patch, when relationships don’t work out, when age or illness changes our bodies? We start to doubt our worth. I’ve seen accomplished professionals crumble when they lose their jobs, as if their paycheck was the only thing that made them valuable. I’ve watched people spiral into depression after breakups, convinced that being single somehow made them defective.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize (actually, what I had to unlearn!). Our worth isn’t tied to any of these factors. It’s not something we achieve, it’s something we are born with. And because it’s intrinsic, nothing and no one can take it away.

Try this simple exercise: whenever you start doubting your worth, pause and ask yourself: Did I create myself? Did I choose to be born? Did I design my initial circumstances, my family, the era I was born into? These questions will instantly make you see the folly of trying to assess your self-worth based on things that were largely beyond your control to begin with.

You Are Here, Therefore You Are Worthy

The moment you were born, you were worthy. You didn’t need to earn love, care, or the right to exist. As a baby, your very being was enough. Nobody looked at you and said, “Let’s see what this little one accomplishes before we decide if they deserve attention and care.” You were simply loved for existing.

That truth doesn’t change as you grow older, it only gets buried under societal expectations that tell you that your worth must be earned. But think of the people you love most in your life. Do you love your best friend because of their job title? Do you cherish your family members only when they’re successful? Of course not. You love them simply because they are who they are. The same principle applies to you.

Here’s something for you to contemplate: since you did not choose to be born, why should you be the one deciding whether you’re worthy enough to exist? It’s a bit like a flower questioning whether it deserves sunlight, or a bird wondering if it has the right to fly.

The fact that you’re here — alive, breathing, and conscious — means that something greater than you thought you were worthy of being. Whether you call it nature, the Universe, God, the cosmos, or even random chance, it chose for you to exist. And that makes you perfect as you are. Your worth is a given, not a question to be answered.

In my view, to doubt your worth is to question the very force that brought you into being. It’s like receiving a gift and then spending your entire life wondering if you deserved it, instead of simply appreciating what you’ve been given. Regardless of what you do, how you look, or what other people think about you, you are worthy.

The Liberation of Not Having to “Earn” Self-Worth

Once you see your worth as inherent, something remarkable happens — you become free. Free from the exhausting pressure to prove yourself. Free from the constant anxiety about whether you’re measuring up. Free from the need to perform for an audience that’s largely too busy worrying about their own performance to judge yours anyway.

I remember the exact moment this shift happened for me. I was in my thirties, having what I thought was a successful career, but I was overworked, exhausted and miserable. I was working late nights, trying hard to make it, terrified that if I slowed down, people would realize I wasn’t actually that valuable. One evening, almost burned out, I asked myself: “When is enough, enough? What exactly am I trying to prove, and to whom?”

It was then that it struck me that I was running on a hamster wheel of my own making, chasing approval from people who were running on their own hamster wheels. None of us were actually watching each other as closely as we thought. We were all too busy worrying about our own “performance”.

Also read » The High Cost of the Rut

Does recognizing your inherent worth mean you stop growing or setting goals? Quite the opposite! You are now free to pursue your goals from a place of genuine interest and passion, not from a fear of being “less than” in any way. When you stop questioning whether you’re enough, life becomes a lot lighter. You don’t chase approval or seek validation anymore. You are no longer paralyzed by the fear of failure, because failure doesn’t threaten your fundamental worth.

You stop measuring your life against someone else’s highlight reel because you realize everyone’s just making it up as they go along, just like you. You start making choices based on what genuinely interests and fulfills you, rather than what looks impressive to others. And paradoxically, this often leads to more authentic success than all that frantic striving ever did.

When you operate from this place of quiet self-assurance, you become more attractive to others — not because you’re trying to impress them, but because authenticity is magnetic. You become a better friend, partner, parent, or colleague because you’re not constantly worried about your own performance. You can actually show up for others because you’re not consumed with proving yourself.

Living From Your Worth

So how do you practically live from this understanding? It starts with catching yourself in those moments when you slip back into old patterns. When you catch yourself comparing, when you feel that familiar pang of “not enough,” when you start performing for others’ approval — pause. Remind yourself: “I exist, therefore I am worthy.”

It means treating yourself with the same kindness you’d show a good friend. It means setting boundaries not because you have to earn respect, but because you already deserve it. It means taking up space in the world without apologizing for it.

Most importantly, it means remembering that everyone around you is also inherently worthy, including that person who seems to have it all together, and that person who’s clearly struggling. We’re all just humans trying to figure it out, and we all deserve compassion, starting with ourselves.

Related » The High Cost of Beating Yourself Up Habitually

Summing Up: Your Birth Has Ensured Your Worth

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. So just be yourself and forget about trying to be worthy, because you already are! Always have been and always will be.

Your worth isn’t something you need to discover, earn, or prove. It’s something you need to remember. It was never in doubt, only buried under years of conditioning that convinced you otherwise. The work isn’t about becoming worthy. The work is about unlearning the lie that you weren’t worthy to begin with.