What my concussion taught me about self-worth

Here’s a question that might require you to get more honest with yourself than you’d like: Is your sense of self-worth tied to what you accomplish, create, or contribute? 

I had an experience in the past few months that showed me that my own self-worth is tied to these markers of productivity to a greater extent than I’d like. Despite all the “self-development” work I’ve done for years, turns out I have more progress to make in this area than I’d realized. 

Let’s rewind: Eight weeks ago, I was stopped in my tracks outside 30th Street Station in Philadelphia when my ride-share driver slammed the trunk of her car on my head. Bam! Concussion. As it turns out, concussions can be pretty debilitating; they’re traumatic brain injuries that cause symptoms such as headaches, nausea, fatigue, sensitivity to light and sound, difficulty thinking, emotional distress, and interrupted sleep. Recovery requires a lot of brain rest and physical rest. And, in our information economy, inability to tolerate screen time equals a death knell on productivity. Happy High Achiever screeched to a halt. 

No emails to my newsletter subscribers, no new articles published to the blog or LinkedIn, no Instagram posts or #HHAReads recommendations. No progress on the group coaching program I planned to launch at the end of the summer. For several weeks I had to reschedule all client sessions and then gradually returned to audio-only sessions (shout-out to my fantastic clients who graciously accommodated the break and the *hopefully* short-term switch from video conferencing). Even now, recovery has been slower than I’d like, but I’m making progress.

During those first few weeks when our couch held a permanent Courtney-shaped indentation from my extended attempts at “brain rest,” my thoughts kept returning to the topic of work and worth. I realized I didn’t just feel sorry for myself, I felt badly about myself. I wasn’t contributing to the world around me in any way or doing anything remotely productive, and I didn’t recognize this person. I felt useless and overly reliant on others. I didn’t like it one bit. 

Reflecting on conversations with friends, colleagues, and clients, I’ve realized I’m not the only one who wired my sense of self-worth to the wrong inputs. So many of us have conditioned ourselves over decades to believe that our self-worth hinges on our efforts and accomplishments, that being a “good person,” however we define that, is necessary but not sufficient. 

It’s a reasonable enough reaction to growing up in a society where the first thing we ask a stranger is what they do to make money, where children asked what they want to be when they grow up are meant to name a profession. We’ve sought to feel worthy by studying harder and acing the test, training harder and winning the race, getting into the “right” schools, landing the “right” jobs, earning our bonuses, gunning for promotions, volunteering for well-regarded organizations, doggedly maintaining a fitness regimen. So where has this gotten us?

Here’s the thing: when we’re hitting the external benchmarks that underpin our sense of self-worth, it feels like this approach works well enough. But when something goes wrong in life and impacts our ability to trigger the dopamine release system we’ve constructed, we realize we’ve built our self-worth from bubblegum and paper clips — it’s not structurally sound, there’s no actual foundation, and the illusion crumbles. 

Here’s what’s crazier: when this happens, most of us don’t learn. Instead, we rebuild. We might find better bubblegum and stronger paper clips, but our approach remains the same. We find a company or career that fits us better, we find a new partner with whom we’re more compatible, we commit to changes that improve our health. We feel better in our lives, we feel better about our lives, and we believe that we’ve regained our self-worth because we’re performing better against specific markers of success. Don’t get me wrong; these are all valuable and beneficial changes that can — and usually do — improve our lives. But when we fall into the same trap of hinging our self-worth on them, we’re merely repeating our own mistakes. 

If our self-worth is not meant to hinge on the metrics and milestones of our external lives, from where should we derive it? I’ve done some research, but the best answer I can come up with is a literal reading of the Webster’s definition: from “a sense of one’s own value as a human being.” When we are able to recognize and appreciate our inherent worth as people, it seems that life shifts. We develop more compassion for ourselves, and our inner critics lose some of their power. Our feelings of accomplishment or failure may spike based on whether or not we’re living up to the expectations we set for ourselves, and our self-esteem might take a hit when we fail or get embarrassed, but our sense of self-worth remains intact.

Or at least that’s how it seems from over here. I’m a work in progress, and it’s okay if you are too. 

If this article resonated with you, please consider sharing it with a friend who might find it useful or on your favorite social media platform. I chose to talk about this very personal experience with the hope that it will help someone else who is struggling right now. Thanks!