Watching the 90’s movie, Ghost, introduced me to two things:

1. The song “Unchained Melody” (which I promptly learned to play on the piano, and have promptly since forgotten), and
   
2. A pottery wheel. You know those pottery wheel scenes, right?

Anyway, ~20 years after seeing the movie, I’ve fulfilled my dream of taking a pottery class. I signed up for a 5-week, “parent and teen” pottery class at the local community center, and throwing is so much harder than it looks!

I found myself wanting to do things “right,” and to hear the instructor say I was doing a good job. 

But how much of that was due to me just wanting to learn a new skill vs. me feeling like my value was tied to someone else deciding I was worthy of praise?

I didn’t sign up to get praise, or even really to learn a new skill. I signed up to have fun and to spend time with my daughter. 

And I WAS both having fun and spending time with my daughter – so why wasn’t that enough?

This is a complicated topic for a lot of us…don’t even get me started on when we’re doing things that hold more weight, like a project at work. How much should others’ opinions matter?

And this isn’t just a “Type-A” personality thing.

For many of us it’s deeper — tied to core fears and core beliefs.

In the “self-worth” section of my online course, Next Level You, we dig into core beliefs, and how they shape our behavior and impact the way we view the world and ourselves. 

For example, in childhood if you were only praised for getting straight A’s, you might develop the (potentially subconscious) belief that your worth is tied to having the right answers, or not making mistakes.

Catching myself when I have thoughts like that (I want to do this “right”) and digging in to understand where those thoughts are coming from, and how they’re helping or hurting me, has been instrumental in my mental health journey.

do you want to learn more about core beliefs?

In case you missed last week’s note, I shared this 3-question survey to gather info on what other topics you’re interested in for workshops. If you haven’t yet, would you please take 1 minute to fill this out, so I can keep providing relevant support?

---

P.S. If live workshops aren’t your jam, check out my self-paced, online program, Next Level You: happier, more resilient, confident and calm. You can do it from home in your pjs. 🙂