How to use EFT for Professional and Personal Self-Worth

Have you ever noticed that your self-worth seems to decline faster when you are having a tough phase in your career? It’s because our professional achievements play a massive role in building our self-worth throughout our adulthood - the greater the number of achievements in our career, the better our self-worth will be. In general, our achievements share a directly proportional relationship with our self-worth. That’s the reason why we struggle with generalised low self-worth when we are facing setbacks in our career.

In this article, I have highlighted some of the factors that negatively impact one’s overall self-worth when it is measured only through the lens of one's professional achievements, and how you can apply EFT for self-worth.

1. Self-Worth Tied Solely to Professional Achievements

Some people will perceive their self-worth only through the lens of their professional achievements. Maybe they were taught to do it that way. For them, their professional achievements are the only credentials which convince them that they are worthy. This way of perceiving things will affect their self-worth drastically if they don’t achieve anything or don’t succeed consistently in their career.

Try these tapping phrases:

"Even though I am measuring my worth only with the number of achievements I have made in my career, I deeply and completely accept myself." (Use a balancing phrase that works for you.)
"Even though I need more achievements or successes at work to convince myself that I am worthy, ..."

2. Failure to Build Resilience

Though prioritizing the habit of improving one’s self-worth is mostly useful, trying to control the process instead of having more flexibility will make one’s self-worth more fragile. For instance, when a person wants to improve their worth in any particular area of their life, it’s not feasible to experience only the things that would build their self-worth - they may also have to get through the things that damage it. If they have a rigid mindset to find only the things that give them a sense of achievement, their sense of worth is going to be naturally so fragile, because they would be missing the opportunities to build resilience along the way.

Try these tapping phrases:

"Even though I am inclined to look only for things that would build my self-worth and avoid things that damage my self-worth…"
"Even though my self-worth is so fragile that even small failures can damage it easily…"

3. Staying In One’s Comfort Zone

One of the reasons why people unconsciously stay in their comfort zone is they want to protect their self-worth. They will be overly focused on not risking their self-worth; hence they avoid experiences that strain their self-worth even a little, which further makes them susceptible to having fragile self-worth. It also keeps them playing safe, which is actually hindering their growth in their career. But the truth is one’s self-worth can’t always be kept stable, especially in one's career.

Try these tapping phrases:

"Even though I am focused only on not damaging my self-worth instead of building it again when it gets damaged..."
"Even though I am avoiding things that may strain my self-worth even a little because it seems to be a safe option…"

4. Overgeneralising One’s Professional Achievements to All Other Areas

When people are very good at their work, for example, managing a big team of employees, they may be an amazing professional indeed. But what happens when they overgeneralise it, for example, to their parenting skills too? When you overgeneralise one or a few successes, you tend to overgeneralise failures too. So, their worth as a parent will also be strained when they face failures at work. This will lead to a sense of an “overall lack of worth.” The quality of being excellent at work doesn’t always mean that the person will be naturally good at other areas of life too. Having that distinction would help the person to be more resilient in challenging times at work because they know how to see the setbacks for what they are.

Try these tapping phrases:

"Even though I overgeneralise my low self-worth in my career to all other areas of life too…"
"Even though my current low self-worth related to my career is reducing my overall sense of worth…"

In conclusion, addressing one’s low self-esteem caused by career setbacks at the right time is very important. In this article I have shared a few suggestions for how to use EFT for self-worth.

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Saranya Shanthakumar is a certified accredited EFT practitioner based in Tamil Nadu, India.

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