30 Self-Worth Quotes For When You’re Feeling You’re Not Enough

I’ve been there.

Self-worth diminishing at too fast a pace and some days wondering if I mattered at all.

I was in the state of mind where it was getting clearer by the day that I wasn’t enough.  Nothing I did was enough, nothing I said was right, and every horribly tough event was followed up by another.

Too many heartbreaking losses to count made life painful and brutal.  I was constantly being knocked off my feet with so many unexpected life changes.

Every moment was spent on doubting myself, doubting my self-worth, criticizing  myself for not being stronger in the face of life’s challenges. I was wasting my life, throwing it away and I was disappearing in a puddle of self-recriminations and regrets.

Something had to give. I had no other choice than to give up the usual responses to life, the responses that might have been killing my joy, but were familiar and comfortable.  I needed to face the truth that the things I had accepted about myself had to go. 

I needed to re-invent myself. To get myself to the state of mind that would let me move forward in life so that each time I stood at a crossroads that was rocky and difficult I could face it with a mindset that would prevent me from spiraling down the doomsday path towards greater self-sabotage.

I wanted to be at home in my mind and heart where peace in life, regardless of events, came from being who I truly was, and where I had a command over my mind rather than the other way around.

This meant I had to catch myself when I was falling into that negative state of mind that would have me believe I wasn’t enough. That I would never be enough.

Thinking straight, have a calm, conscious mind so I could make the best possible responses was the goal.  So I had to come up with an easy way of doing this.

Positive, proactive daily reminders came to mind. Reminders that could keep me in a state of right thinking that would set up a vibrational frequency within  me and heighten my feelings of self-worth.  

It turns out life is an energy thing and I wanted to be immersed in high vibrational energies that would draw more of the same to me. 

It’s all about keeping those high vibrational thoughts at the forefront of your mind every day, so they become a part of you so that  the energy you need will be readily available on those days when everything goes to hell. 

Quotes, affirmations, prayers, mantras whatever you want to call them felt right. Daily positive, proactive reminders to keep me on track by reminding me of my self-worth. Reminding me I always was and always would be enough even when life knocked me off my feet.

Ultimately I  learned that self-worth, valuing myself and believing I was enough didn’t mean life wasn’t going to throw a hand-grenade in the works every now and then.  It meant I could be in the midst of it all and know peace. And regardless of life’s twists and turns I could value myself throughout each challenge without self-criticism. I could regain my sense of self-worth and value.

Though this was many years ago, I still use positive, self-worth quotes/affirmations to keep me from ever going back to that place where I never felt I was enough.

You can do the same, whatever it is that’s a challenge in your life, be it lack of self-respect,  or self-worth, or self-love, or needing to forgive, or insecurity or anxiety.

Make the effort to choose one of these self-worth quotes every day and take a minute or so to mental repeat it and you too can see how doing this will gradually change the way you see yourself and how you can handle every turn and crossroad in life without breaking a sweat. (Well okay, most of them!)

And if my compilation of quotes from my works and those of the greats doesn’t do it for you here’s a book of 365 Days of Inspirational Quotes from Dr. Joe Tichio that you might find worth checking out and there you have a quote a day for the year.

Self-worth quotes

1. Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her. – Lao Tzu
2. Energy and persistence conquer all things. – Benjamin Franklin
3. Stop judging yourself by where you are and start appreciating the distance you’ve travelled from where you started. – Elle Sommer
4. Change yourself and fortune will change with you. – Portugese Proverb
5. Never say ‘yes’ to others if it means you’re always saying ‘no’ to yourself. – Elle Sommer
6. If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place. – Lao Tzu
7. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. – Thomas Jefferson
8. You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone. You are amazingly brilliantly you. Celebrate it. – Elle Sommer
9. Our destiny changes with our thoughts; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thoughts correspond with our desires. – Orison Swett Marden
10. Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on your own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon. – Denis Waitley
11. The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. – Michelangelo 
12. As long as you can love who you are and what you do, no-one else’s opinions matter. – Elle Sommer
13. Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good. – Malcolm Gladwell
14. Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. – Dale Carnegie
15. Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. – Benjamin Disraeli
16. Note to self. Invest in yourself now, it pays the best interest tomorrow. – Elle Sommer
17. A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them. – Leonard Louis Levinson
18. Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine. – Mario Fernandez
19. The quickest way to achieve self-confidence is to do exactly what you are afraid to do. – Elle Sommer
20. To take a leap of faith means we must stop thinking about it and jump. If you must doubt something, doubt your limits. – Elle Sommer
21. I say if I’m beautiful. I say if I’m strong.  You will not determine my story…I will. – Amy Schumer
22. Create gaps between stimulus and reaction and the gap will show you the path. – Amit Ray
23. if you want  to accomplish something new, you don’t  have to know how to do it. You just need to know you DID it. The Universe will conspire to help you with new thoughts ideas and plans. – Elle Sommer
24. The way you react in times of challenges will determine whether your challenges will weigh you down, or you will overthrow them. – Israelmore Ayivor
25. Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change. – Shannon L. Alder
26. Knowing how the environment is pulling your strings and playing you is critical to making responsive rather than reactive moves. – Wilhelm von Humboldt
27. If you have the ability to love, love yourself first. – Charles Bukowski
28. Real magic lies within you. In believing in yourself. Do that and you can do anything. – Elle Sommer
29. Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness. –  Deborah Day
30. If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. – Fred Rogers

Final thoughts

What about you?  Got any quotes you use regularly to keep yourself on track?  I hope you are using them to inspire and encourage you, because as Emerson said “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be” and I say make that someone YOU!

Encourage one another.

Love Elle

xox