“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
I recently listened to a podcast where the speakers talked about drawing their self-esteem from work and parenthood. It got me thinking — where does mine come from?
Growing up, it came almost entirely from academics. I remember tying even something as small as wearing makeup to how well I studied. The logic was simple: if you performed well, no one could judge you for anything else — what you wore, how you behaved, who you were. Beyond that, my parents played a huge role. They consistently made me feel like I was no less than anyone, and I think that gave me a quiet, steady confidence I carried into adulthood.
But now, in my 30s, that definition has shifted. Especially as I watch people around me lose jobs, question their identities, and rebuild from scratch.
In my early 20s, I tied my self-worth to money and education — not wealth in the deeper sense, but the more surface-level markers of success. And I don’t think I was alone in that. It’s precisely why a sudden job loss or a major life change can shake someone to their core — because they’ve anchored their worth to something that was never fully in their control.
Which brings me to the definition itself. Self-esteem: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. In oneself. So if it’s fundamentally about how we see ourselves, why do we keep handing that power to the outside world?
That little girl who equated her grades with her worth was chasing external validation — looking for permission to feel good about herself. But the grades were never fully in her control. Teachers, circumstances, bad days — those things all play a role. What was always in her control was the effort, the curiosity, the showing up. That’s where the worth should have lived.
And that’s the shift I’ve come to believe in: our self-esteem has to be rooted in things we actually control. When we tie it to people, or to roles that could disappear overnight, we’re always one change away from a crisis of identity.
Take parenting. I can be proud of the effort I put into being a mother — the thought, the patience, the love I show up with every day. But my self-worth as a parent can’t depend on my son’s verdict. If he tells me someday that I wasn’t a good mom, that’s his experience — and I can hold space for that. But it doesn’t change what I know to be true about myself. I know the mother I am.
That distinction — between effort and outcome, between internal knowing and external approval — took me a long time to really internalize. But once it clicks, something changes. No person, no job loss, no outside shift can truly touch your sense of worth, because it’s no longer in their hands.
And honestly? I have my parents and my husband to thank for laying the foundation. They reflected something back to me so consistently that it eventually became mine — so solid that even if they said otherwise tomorrow, it wouldn’t move me. They built something they can no longer take apart.
They created the monster.
Practically Speaking: How to Build Self-Esteem From the Inside
One of the most powerful habits is effort journaling — writing down what you did, not what you achieved. It trains your brain to find value in the process over the outcome. It’s also worth asking, whose voice is my inner critic? More often than not, it belongs to someone else — a parent, a teacher, a peer. Separating their opinion from your truth is quietly liberating.
Social media is worth naming too — it’s essentially a machine designed to make you outsource your self-worth. And then there’s “role collapse” — that moment when someone loses a job and says, “I don’t know who I am anymore.” That’s a sign they were in the role. The antidote is asking yourself, before life forces the question — Who am I outside of what I do?
And on parenting, children don’t learn self-esteem from being told they’re worthy. They absorb it by watching a parent who actually believes it about themselves. This inner work isn’t selfish. It’s generational.
How Do You Know Where Your Self-Esteem Actually Stands?
Most of us have never stopped to audit this honestly. A few ways to find out:
Notice what consistently shakes you. That pattern usually points directly to where your worth is anchored. Ask yourself where your good mood about yourself comes from today. If the answer is almost always external, that’s worth sitting with.
Pay attention to your automatic self-talk — not the curated inner voice, but the reflexive one. And try the subtraction exercise: remove your job, income, relationships, and achievements one by one. What’s left that you still feel good about? Whatever survives is your real foundation.
And finally, what would you still be proud of about yourself if no one ever found out? Whatever comes up is probably where your real self-esteem lives.
What I’m Reading
Grit — Angela Duckworth (Currently reading)
A quieter, deeper read about perseverance, effort, and what it actually takes to stay in something long enough for it to matter.
Raising Brows - Anastasia Soare (Currently Reading)
Raising Brows tells the story of how Anastasia Soare transformed a single, overlooked beauty detail into a global empire by mastering her craft, leveraging precision and education, and turning expertise into authority.
What Else Dropped This Week
Off Script
How Mayssa Chehata Built Behave Through Life’s Hardest Season
Why Deepa Walked Away From Corporate to Build Her Own Brands
Under the Hood
Disney: The House That Bob Built (Twice)
The Baby Food Gamble: How Two Moms Built a $845 Million Company From Scratch
Skin Deep
How Your Skin Changes as You Age
On My Reading Desk
Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
How emotional intelligence can help us overcome imposter syndrome
6 in 10 People Regret Their Careers — and This Legendary Investor Spent a Decade Finding the Fix
My Business Did $1 Million in Sales in 4 Minutes With This Underrated Strategy
Note to My Future Self
The little girl who earned her worth through grades grew into a woman who knows better. My value was never in the result. It was always in the showing up.
Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.
— Sai Menon