Areas › Yourself and your limits › Your worth is not conditional
Your worth is not your output. A bad day at work does not lower your value as a person.
You are not a scoreboard. Performance rises and falls; your worth is not pinned to it.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We have honoured the children of Adam (Quran 17:70). Your honour is granted, not earned by output; it does not rise and fall with a day.
۞وَلَقَدۡ كَرَّمۡنَا بَنِيٓ ءَادَمَ وَحَمَلۡنَٰهُمۡ فِي ٱلۡبَرِّ وَٱلۡبَحۡرِ وَرَزَقۡنَٰهُم مِّنَ ٱلطَّيِّبَٰتِ وَفَضَّلۡنَٰهُمۡ عَلَىٰ كَثِيرࣲ مِّمَّنۡ خَلَقۡنَا تَفۡضِيلࣰ ا
We have honoured the children of Adam and carried them by land and sea; We have provided good sustenance for them and favoured them specially above many of those We have created
Qur’an 17:70read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Staking your self-worth on external results, work, looks, approval, leaves it fragile and prone to collapse; a steadier self-worth is less contingent on any single outcome.
Crocker, J. and Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review doi
Basing self-worth on external contingencies makes it fragile; less contingent self-worth is more stable and healthy.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Detaching self-worth from performance protects you from the crashes that come when performance dips.
Where this sits: Self-worth; contingencies of self-worth.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.