The self-worth trap

But who will you be when this work is over? Never mind, forget I asked that. (Image by Gerhard G.)

My niece, age four, was practicing her letters. It was not going well.

“This is is the [most] tewwible W I’ve evew seen!” she said angrily, already imposing unrealistic expectations upon herself at her tender age.

This is normal behavior for a four-year-old, but it is nonetheless painful to witness. As an adult, I wish I could have helped her to understand that it’s okay to create letters that aren’t perfect—there is no reason that she should feel bad about herself. But that’s not the kind of thing you can tell somebody. They have to figure it out for themselves.

In fact, I see the same behavior at all ages, all the way to adulthood. We expect ourselves to perform at a certain level, no matter how irrational that expectation might be, and then get frustrated when we can’t. And instead of focusing on what we’re doing, we make a judgement about who we are.

It gets worse when we are committed to a particular creative project. Instead of seeing that project as, say, a fun experiment, an opportunity for self-expression, a chance to serve others, or a way to make a little money, we link it inextricably with our identity and even our value as a person. Then, if our project fails, we’ve become a failure.

Once we’ve bound our self-worth to a specific endeavor, we’ve created a trap. To give up on this project means giving up on ourselves. What’s more, to unlink our identify and self-worth from this project would be as unthinkable as separating our soul from our body. That leaves us with only one way to win, and infinite ways to lose.

The best way I’ve come up with to avoid this self-worth trap is to have more than one project going. If we are involved in multiple things, our identity is not wrapped up in any one of them. Our value as a person is independent of these individual projects, and we are free to continue or discontinue them without causing emotional harm.

For this reason, I prefer to do lots of small things instead of one big thing. It has given me the freedom to grow and challenge myself without spending a lot of time mired in existential crises. I’m moving forward, and that’s enough.

On the other hand, maybe I’m missing out on an opportunity to have a powerful impact by focusing all of my energy and attention on one endeavor. You could say that I’m hiding behind a multitude of projects and therefore not living up to my potential. Nevertheless, for me, this trade-off is worth it. I am so much happier than I was when I was putting all of my energy and hope into one pursuit, and I’m more successful, too.

When I faced the possibility of closing down my music school at the start of the pandemic, I was surprised to discover that I was okay with that. “Eh, we had a good run,” I said to myself. This would not have been possible a decade prior when I felt that my music school was all I had. There’s now a healthy detachment where there was once a desperate need to prove myself and my worth. I would never want to go back to the way I used to be.

I still have an ego for sure; for me, it’s heavily bound up in my identity as a business owner. I will have to address that at some point. I know intellectually that, without my career, I still exist and have value; however, if it were ever to disappear, I would have an uncomfortable period of wandering around aimlessly. In the meantime, I can continue to challenge myself to find meaning and satisfaction in lots of different ways, in and out of work.

It’s hard to let go of a project we’re passionate about, even if it’s what is best for us. “It’s my baby,” people often say. Of course, even a baby has its own identity and grows up to establish a life apart from its parents. The more we can see this end in the beginning, we can be emotionally resilient. We can find multiple paths to success and many sources of joy. We will see other possibilities and opportunities. If our dear, precious pet project comes to fruition, that will be wonderful, but it’s not everything. We’ll know that we are more than that.