Why You Should Never Sell Yourself Short

What does it mean to sell yourself short? It means to underestimate your capabilities or believing it's okay to settle for the mediocre things in life rather than the amazing ones. The idea of selling yourself short can apply to all aspects of your life. Sometimes, we don't even notice that we're letting ourselves settle for less because we may either just be used to behaving this way or we truly are not giving ourselves as much credit as we deserve.

Maybe you're in a relationship where you know the other person is treating you poorly, and that you don't deserve that kind of treatment, but you stay. Maybe you have friends who aren't supportive or don't have your back when you need them most, yet you keep them. Whatever the reason is, if you can acknowledge that you deserve better and don't do anything about it, you're selling yourself short.

You deserve the best. No matter who you are, where you are from, or what you think, you deserve the best out of life. There is no reason in the world why you should not uphold yourself to the highest standards. Selling yourself short when you know you're capable of accomplishing greater things is only going to hurt you in the long run.

Selling yourself short causes you to feel like this:

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You Miss Out

This may be some tough love but ultimately, you decide how to live your life. You're in control of some of the biggest decisions, so if you choose not to give yourself what you feel you deserve, that's on you. You will only end up missing out and spending a lot of time thinking about the 'what could have beens' in your life.

Don't let yourself end up feeling nostalgic and just give yourself what you want. By withholding your true passions or desires from yourself will only make you feel like you missed out on a lot of opportunities.

It Hurts Your Self-Esteem

Missing out is only the first step in the process of selling yourself short. If you start to feel you're missing out or did miss out on the finer things in life, it's going to end up hurting your self-esteem. The more you resent your relationship, friendship, job etc. the worse you'll begin to feel about life in general.

If you're constantly thinking about how much happier you could be if only you made a change or did something different only to never actually make the change, it can leave you feeling defeated. The feelings of defeat make you feel like you can't overcome what's hindering you. This makes you feel overwhelmed and stuck in the scenario, which causes your self-confidence to drop very low.

Once your self-esteem takes a hit, it starts to become a struggle to make yourself feel good about anything, even if it's something positive.

Feeling Unfulfilled

Your lack of self-esteem will inevitably end up leading you to feel like your life, goals, objectives or desires have gone unfulfilled. While this may be true, it's important to remember that you are still in control of yourself and have the power to make these changes happen.

The feelings of being unfulfilled are not very helpful to ones we're already having about missing out and having low self-esteem. It's a vicious cycle that will continue on forever unless you decide to make that step in a different direction.

It may feel so out of reach or like a serious struggle but remind yourself of the end results and what you're fighting for. Your happiness is always worth fighting for, especially because you deserve to be happy.

Again, keep in mind that people treat you how you let them and most (not all) situations are in our control. If you know you could be happier at a different job, living somewhere else, following a dream and so on, then you need to go for it. Limiting yourself from giving yourself what you want and need does way more damage than good and those feelings don't go away.

Get rid of the thoughts that are causing so much unhappiness, and replace them with an overall feeling of contentment. It's completely in your hands. All you have to do is remember you're worthy of all the greatness in the world, and you cannot let anyone tell you otherwise.