SUMMARY

• “Unworthiness comes from focusing on where we made a mistake and over-identified with that as who we are.”
• Unworthiness is just negative perceptions that we could constantly carry about ourself, if we don’t know how to refocus. 
• “If you find yourself looking at the past and defining yourself through the past in a diminishing way, acknowledge that that’s just where the mind has gotten caught. It’s not true about you or what’s happening.”
• If you’re looking for tips on how to live from confidence and a sense of worthiness, this episode is for you.
• Watch the video to get the full training.

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 Full Transcript:

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Joey’s Performance Tune Up With Joey Klein. Please note that this episode, like all episodes, features Joey speaking unscripted and unedited. This video is captured in one take.]

In this session, we're going to talk about unworthiness and what drives unworthiness. So there are rules to the emotions that we feel. Meaning if we feel a certain way, we are doing some specific key things that is fueling and activating and keeping that emotion alive and prevalent. And if we understand what we're doing to create an emotion and to fuel an emotion, to keep an emotion alive and present for us, then we can stop doing those things and then redirect the mind and the body to do other things that are gonna essentially strengthen or produce different feelings, different emotions on our  behalf, which then translates to a different quality of life and different outcomes, usually. 


And so when we look at unworthiness and we break it down and we pay attention, like, hey, what is the mind doing when we feel unworthy? Most of the time, the mind is focused on some past events, past events of some kind, and how we didn't perform up to our expectations. And so we're looking at these past events, and there's usually a theme of, I shouldn't have done that, right? I shouldn't have spoken to so and so that way, or I shouldn't have behaved in that manner, or I should have did better on that project, or I should have done better here or there. And it really is a theme of focusing on our shortfalls, our shortcomings. Right. Where did we essentially not only just make a mistake, but miss the mark and then identify that, over Identify with that as who we are? And so, hey, it's not, I just made a mistake and I learned, and now I'm gonna move on. That would be a great pivot. So that unworthiness isn't there. 


We don't get caught in it, but typically it sounds something more like, you know, I missed that mark, and therefore I'm stupid, right? There's, like, usually some self, you know, degradation that goes on with that, where we are like, man, I did really poorly on that test, therefore, I'm not good enough. I'm stupid, I'm an idiot. I don't deserve x, y, and z. And there's some theme of that that we're playing out when we look at past events and we missed our own mark. And what I mean by we missed our own mark is typically we are dissatisfied with our performance, whereas other people aren't even thinking about it anymore. Right. You might feel really bad that you made a mistake with money or that you didn't perform the way you wanted to in a sport or you ate something you shouldn't have or whatever it is, right? And you look back, well, man, I treated somebody poorly when I was upset, and I hurt their feelings, and I'm a bad person because I hurt somebody else. 


And so we don't just name what happened, but we name what happened, and then we have it define us, right? We go, oh, I hurt somebody's feelings, therefore I'm a bad person. Therefore I don't deserve x. Therefore I'm a sinner, therefore I'm XYZ. And so it's not the mistake that we made or the pain we caused somebody else, even if it was a big mistake, even if it was really destructive. We're all destructive humans at the end of the day, or at least have the potential to be destructive. That's just part of being human, and also it's part of learning, right? I mean, we've all been a teenager at one point in time where, you know, we were a destructive force at times and didn't even realize what we didn't know, right? And so it's not that we're making mistakes. It's not that we're not making big mistakes sometimes. It's how we relate to the mistake that's made, right? I did this. Whatever this is, whether it was yesterday, whether it was this morning or ten years ago, I did X. And therefore it means this about me. And then how we define the meaning is usually diminishing in some fashion, right? I'm an idiot. I'm stupid. I'm not worthy of love. I don't deserve to live. There's this whole way that we end up defining ourself in response to the event in the past. 


So a better approach is, hey, this happened. Here's what I learned from it, and here's how I strive to do better in the future and then focus on the way you want to execute moving forward as opposed to holding on to the past. And so if we look at, again, unworthiness and what tends to fuel it, usually we have this, like, you know, the set of past events that we keep going back to, and we acknowledge those past events. We feel bad for who we were in those moments in the past or what we did, and then we have it define us. We have it mean something about us in a negative and derogatory fashion, and then that fuels that unworthiness. And then we just loop. We go to the same event, have it mean the same thing, go to the same event, have it mean the same thing, and we just keep thinking about that again and again and again. And then we feel unworthy in the moment, and then that motivates things. It influences actions that we take now with the people in our life and the way we're living and the things that we're doing. 


The other aspect that fuels unworthiness is just constantly the negative perceptions that we can carry about ourself, right? I'm too skinny, I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm not worthy, I'm not educated enough, right? And so on and so forth. And so the other piece that can fuel unworthiness is essentially why we're not. It's always a theme of why we're not, right, why we're not able to execute something, why we're not worthy of something. And really looking at ourself or relating to ourself in a derogatory fashion or a diminishing fashion in some way where we just get caught in a theme of essentially why we're not enough. Right? I'm not enough because, I'm not enough because, like, there's all kinds of reasons we can come up with. I'm not enough because I'm too short. I'm not enough because I'm too tall, I'm too skinny, I'm too fat. I'm not enough because I don't have enough education. I don't have enough skill. I don't have enough experience, right? I'm not enough because I did these things in the past like we were talking about before. 


But it tends to be just a theme of not enough. And then we reinforce the reasons why we're not enough. And it can feel very real, it can feel very true as to, you know, the reasons we can come up with to validate unworthiness or why we don't deserve, right? But if we really are committed, we can come up with just as many reasons as to why we have value and why we deserve to have good things in our life today and aspire to great things tomorrow. It's all in how we relate to the space, because we could just as easily focus the mind if we're willing to do it with a little bit of practice on, hey, I deserve this because I'm a human, and other humans deserve it, you know, as well, or something I often encourage people to do is like, you know, imagine you were thinking of somebody else, like a friend or a colleague or a complete stranger. Because when I asked the random person, like, hey, does this person deserve love and kindness? Does this person deserve wealth? Does this person deserve to realize their dreams and you're thinking about just somebody that you don't know, just some random person out there in the world or like a friend or oftentimes, you know, a colleague of yours, you go, of course they deserve all those things. But then when I say, well, do you deserve that? It's, no, I don't deserve it. 


And so we'll literally look at other people as worthy across the board and go, of course they deserve things. They're human. We all make mistakes. They're striving to do better, they're doing the best we can. And we inherently accept that, usually about other people. But then when we look at ourselves, we don't deserve because, right. We go into that whole thing that we just talked about. So if you catch yourself in either of those themes, looking at the past and then defining yourself through the past in a diminishing way as to why you are not worthy, why you don't deserve things, right? Or you're just relating to yourself today, and you're looking at all the reasons why you don't deserve x, or why you're not good enough, and you're in that theme of not good enough or the reason you don't deserve x, right? Just catch the mind and understand that. That's just where we've gotten focused. We got trained to focus that way in ways we won't talk about right now. It came from our caregivers, it came from environment, it came from social media, it came from society, it came from all kinds of places, but it's not important where it came from. What's important is to catch the mind when it's focusing in this way and give yourself permission to start redirecting it. 


And again, a good little trick or a good technique to leverage is imagine relating to yourself as you would relate to other people, and you'll find that it starts to be a little bridge to affirm yourself in really positive ways that are encouraged, that are going to encourage and motivate not just growth within yourself so, you know, a greater sense of fulfillment with you, but also will be able to leverage and ultimately influence yourself to the actions that will produce the outcomes that you're wanting in your life. So I hope this was helpful and we'll see you in a session soon.