Whose Score Is That?

Can I ask you something? When did you last feel like enough without doing something first to deserve it?

That pause, if you had one, is the score talking. We walk around with a running score in our heads…points for the good days…points off for the bad ones…a quiet total of whether we have done enough today to count.

Is that really what worth is, a score we keep up? I’d like to talk you out of that one, starting with where the score came from. That score is heavy, even when nobody else can see it.

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The score came as praise, mostly. Praise for being easy to have around, praise for not needing much, praise for getting it right the first time and for not making a fuss when we didn’t. None of those is terrible on its own. Together they taught one lesson, that the easy version of you was the one people wanted.

Underneath that total sits a quiet little voice. When the total dips, it says “I should.”

Confidence is the one that wobbles

Confidence goes up and down. We feel it after a good day and we lose it after a hard one. Worth doesn’t move the way confidence does. It was there before we did anything this morning. It will still be there after we have done everything wrong this afternoon, whether or not we believe it by bedtime.

Think of the people you love. Do they have to earn their place with you every single day? Does the one who dropped the ball on Tuesday get less of you on Wednesday? Not a chance! Most of the time, the only person who gets run through the score is you.

Before we were useful

We were worth something before we were useful to anyone. We still are.

If you’ve spent years believing the opposite, a worth that doesn’t move is a strange idea to hold. I am not going to pretend one blog post undoes it. What I believe is simple. Nothing is wrong with you. We were given a scorecard. A scorecard is not a verdict.

Whose score is that?

If you’d like one thing to try, you can do it tonight, lying right where you are. Take the last “I should” that went through your head and picture who said it first. A teacher? Your mother? A boss from years ago? Sometimes it’s you. Sometimes the score really isn’t yours at all, and if it isn’t, it’s okay to push back on it a little. Once you can see whose voice it is, it stops sounding like yours.

Yours the whole time

Your worth was never something anybody gave you, so it is not something anybody can take back. It was yours the whole time, through every bad day and every dropped ball and every Tuesday you’d rather forget, and it will be yours tomorrow, whatever the score says. You don’t earn it. You just have it.

Putting the scorecard down takes a while. I’d be glad to help you with yours. When you’re ready, request a time or write to me.

On solid ground,

Acelli