Ep 3.5 - Breaking the Lie that Reaching Goals Defines You

In this first episode of our month on self worth, specifically detaching our self worth from reaching external goals, Jill explains why this is such a toxic lie, what verse we're going to be focusing on to break the power of this lie in our lives, and how to approach self worth instead.

Episode Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to the authentic uprising show. I'm your host, Jill Simons. I am so excited to grow in the radical art of standing in what God says about you with you today. This show is a place where we pour into our concept of who we are, how we've been created with intention by God and how we can live out of the freedom that he has for us more every single day.

Jill Simons

00:00:42

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the authentic uprising podcast. I'm your host, Jill Simons. And as always, I love to see you every single week. I get so excited that you are listening to this podcast with me. I love that this is a medium that is available to us in this time in history to really dive deeper into the truth together and to really investigate what is the truth that God has for us in our lives, because just so much good fruit comes of that. And so this week we're gonna be talking about this, lie, that, and I shouldn't say it's just this week, because it's gonna be the entire month of June. We're talking, talking about this lie that so many of us tell ourselves this is, I mean, really every single lie that we have dealt with so far this year is like pandemic level, not to make light at all, because they're all very, very serious that people are dealing with all of these things, but they're just epidemic in world.

Jill Simons

00:01:43

People telling themselves these lies. And this one is right up there with all of the ones we've done so far this year. And the lie we're gonna be talking about is this it's tied to our self worth, this lie that I could never be secure in my worth, unless I reach some kind, kind of metric of being holy enough, successful enough, wealthy enough, pretty enough, thin enough, whatever it is that some kind of outside factor is going to be the thing that speaks into us and gives us our worth. And that it's really a pipe dream to think we could ever successfully get there without that metric. And this is a lie that I think a lot of us can recognize as a lie kind of in a vacuum. You know, I present it that way and people are like, yes, that's a lie. Obviously, you know, success, wealth, thinness, beauty, whatever.

Jill Simons

00:02:49

Ultimately don't satisfy you. It's detached from your self worth and things like that. But at the same time, we'll live our lives in this way. Even when we recognize and know that this is a lie. So an example of this is just the simple statement, you know, well, I'll be happy when.dot dot when XYZ happens, when I've reached this metric, whatever the situation will be, I'll feel better or about myself when I've lost 10 pounds, when I've achieved some kind of success in my career, when I've graduated with my college degree, whatever the situation is, we put our self worth, like on a stake out in the future. And we say, okay, we're gonna get it once we get to that place. And so even if the way I presented it in the beginning, we can be like, yep, that's a lie. I know that we still act this way.

Jill Simons

00:03:53

And that is so that's, that's one of those places where we have that like two minds into interacting with these topics, right? We're looking at things with half of our brain and we're saying, yeah, that's a lie. And then we're doing that exact thing with the other half of our brain. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's part of the power of calling these things out and really drawing attention to the fact that we are doing this. You might be doing this, I do this, and it's not logical for us to do it. Because if that fact is a really a lie that our self worth is not on a stake, somewhere out there in the future, why do we keep acting like it is? And what can we do to really bring the future to now to find our self worth right where we are. And so in launching into this topic of self worth, a lot of people might kind of come at me right at the beginning and say, well, self worth is this very like secular idea. It's the same as like self care. And it's just very selfish and self all focused. And this doesn't really have a place in Christian worldview, et cetera, et cetera.

Jill Simons

00:05:09

That is also not the truth because nothing that we do or say or talk about as Christians makes any sense. If human beings don't have any worth, so why would we be pro-life? Why would we want to get married and have families? Why would we want to be in relationship with God? If people don't have any worth, that's a ni list, viewpoint that everything is just kind of meaningless. Again, that's another extreme where we have just kind of a, you know, let's throw the baby out with the bath water because on one side you have the NIS, like nothing matters. And on the other side, you have this kind of wor self worship that happens in our culture where people really like focus on improving themselves and pouring into themselves and self growth. Self-promotion all of these things that are very selfish and self focused.

Jill Simons

00:06:16

What we wanna do you is pursue self worth. That allows us to really find a place of self forgetfulness. That is where there's real freedom, freedom doesn't come from. I don't matter. And you know, nothing that about me is good and nothing matters. And I have no worth, there's no freedom there. That's a very slave, slave minded place to be. And there's also not any freedom in total selfishness. And so freedom lies in the middle when we see honor and accept our own worth. But then we're just kind of, okay, we have this sort of baseline of being okay, where we're able to not think about ourselves that much, because we're okay. When you are in survival mode, when you are struggling, when you are constantly fighting to hustle for your self worth, then you're not able to be free and self forgetful. Whereas if you're good, you know, that you have worth, and it's kind of, you know, conversation over you are in a place where you're able to be self forgetful and free to truly be present to what God wants you to do to truly be present to God in relationship, to truly be present to other people in relationship.

Jill Simons

00:07:48

And so getting this piece of the puzzle right is important. And if we don't, it can really make other, even good things in our lives into a struggle because we're trying to get something out of it that was never meant to be gotten out of it. You can have somebody who has devoted their life to ministry, who entire life is about Christ, teaching people about Christ, maybe singing about Christ, whatever the situation might be. But if they're doing it from a place of trying to prove that they have worth, then that's never gonna be a ministry that is coming from a good place for them. That's never gonna be something that feeds them. It's gonna be something that burns them out. Now that's not to that their ministry can't be effective and efficacious for the people. The other people that re are the recipients of that ministry.

Jill Simons

00:08:48

God's not limited by what we put in that way, but it's not gonna be what the fullness of what God has for them as an individual. And that's why you could live the exact same life. One full of doubt of your self worth. And one full of just security in your self worth live the same life, same success, same ministries, same jobs, same relationships, everything. And one could be this wonderful full life. And the other one could just be absolute desolation because one has a correctly ordered view of sort of where things come from in their life. And the other, it's trying to draw water from a stone, trying to get something out of things that those things were never meant to give them. And so this is why we have to get this piece of the puzzle, right? We have to lay down the lie that our self worth is there somewhere someday.

Jill Simons

00:09:57

We'll get there and embrace the truth. That really, and truly it is. Now we can have it. Now we can live it now, and we need to pursue that because that's what allows us to be free to really do what it is that God is calling us to do. So, no matter where you are at in your life, this is accessible to you. It's not gonna be instant. There's not like, oh, flip a switch, do this mental algorithm and you're there, but it is something that you can be working towards. Literally, no matter what the circumstances of your life are, understanding your self worth, being secure in your self worth is one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself. And it's also one of the greatest gifts that you can allow God to collaborate with you on because it is something that gets you that much close, sir, to the freedom that he created you for.

Jill Simons

01:11:01

It says inclinations. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And if we are living, trying to live the freedom that Christ got for us from this place of bondage to feeling like we need to earn our self worth, that doesn't sound very free to me. And so just pretending, and, and this is a lot of people's approaches. Well, I'm just gonna pretend like I don't really have these needs. I'm just gonna act like I'm okay. That's also not freedom. And so actually digging in and interacting with this and doing the work is not super fun all the time, but so valuable and so helpful. And I just am so glad that we live in a time where these conversations are being had more frequently, because this was not something that was talked about in this way that I was exposed to as a young adult.

Jill Simons

01:11:53

And I'm so thankful that these conversations are being had, because that's the world I want my daughter to grow up in is a world where we're having these conversations and we're interacting with these ideas and helping empower women to really look at these topics through this Christian and lens, really through the lens of what has God created you for. So in interacting with all this, we're gonna be looking at Isaiah's 64 8, which says yet you Lord are our father. I just love that. Anytime that I talk about the Lord as our father, that just is so meaningful to me, but the verse, the whole verse, I won't cut it off. Fit again again, the whole verse yet you Lord are our father. We are the clay and you are Potter. We are all the work of your hand. And I chose this verse because I think that this art analogy works for a lot of people. It's very helpful con text, because what gives value to a piece of artwork?

Jill Simons

01:13:02

I'm sure a lot of people that are not in the like art world, I'm not in the like fine art world at all are like, I don't know. That is just totally random. It doesn't seem to make sense. What gives art value, this sold for, you know, several million dollars. And this other thing that's way more beautiful is practically worthless. It doesn't seem to make sense, but when you look at what art is valuable, it becomes clear that the thing that gives art value is who created it, how influential ex experimental pivotal the artist was. That is the thing that makes a Picasso several million dollars and something by an unknown artist, hard to even maybe give away it's who created it. And so when we have this analogy of God, the father, as the Potter and us as the clay, we come into this context of, we are the artwork of God.

Jill Simons

01:14:18

And so the value of us comes through that context. We have value in large part in, in total part because of who we were created by. And that's why it's universal to all humans, because you could be an awful human being, but you still were created by God, the father, and have inherent worth because of that. That's why all of the ethics and all of the life issue work that Christians do is able to be consistent is because this applies across the board. It is not a pick and choose kind of situation. And so when we are rejecting our own self worth, we could be the most pro-life, you know, name, your issue of human dignity. We could be the most outspoken about that. And yet we're still living in double standard because we're not accepting that worth in ourselves. And so that is the number one reason that we need to work on this.

Jill Simons

01:15:40

We need to take this apart because it doesn't just work for other people. I think that's where so many of these lies sit for us is we believe the truth, but it's very abstract or it's very for other people. And then we apply these very nonsensical, double standards to ourselves where we say, okay, true for all unborn babies, but not true for me, personally, true for every immigrant, but not true for me personally, we just let there be this breakdown between how we think about other people, which is typically in the more faithful, positive light. And we think about ourselves in this very unre, redeemed, negative light. And that's a very much by design of the devil. That's very much what he wants as long as he can keep you very unsure of God's consistency for you and towards you. Then he can keep you pretty off balance about a darn lot of things.

Jill Simons

01:16:47

And so when we are able to embrace this value, we have as the work of the father's hands, we have this tremendous opportunity to enter even more deeply into the worth and value of other people that we see demonstrated through all of these, you know, ethical movements through just our interactions with other people. We are able to appreciate these things and people at a even deeper level when we appreciate them for ourselves. So I encourage you to think about, and really just kind of self-assess where you are at on this topic. Even if you are not nodding along with me. Yes. I'm with you on the self worth. I agree. I'm there a hundred percent just look at yourself. Are you, where are you living this well? And maybe where is there continued opportunity for you to renew your mind about this? I am able to do this well in certain situations in my life.

Jill Simons

01:17:53

And there are other situations in my life that are still very triggering for me, still very challenging for me to be consistent with my own self worth, regardless of results, regardless of benchmarks, regardless of metrics, wherever I I'm at, I am sure and clear in my self worth. And so there's always space for us to grow on these fronts. So as we go throughout this first week of the month, I encourage you to think about that, assess that look at where you are doing well on this self worth front, and where got is inviting you into greater growth. And as always, we're gonna take the third week of this month to really pray directly into that together as a community. So thank you so much for being with me this week. I'll see you next week.

Jill Simons

01:18:43

Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the authentic uprising podcast. If you're watching on YouTube or listening on a podcast app, make sure that you hit subscribe so that you can get all of our updates automatically in your app on YouTube. And we also ask that you leave us a review or a comment. If you're in a podcast app, leave us a review that helps us get seen by more people and on YouTube, leave us a comment, let us know what you from the episode and send it on to a friend. I am sure that, you know, someone who really needs the message in this podcast from today. I also encourage you to check out pink salt riots. That is my company that sponsors this podcast. We have an incredible online shop full of all kinds of beautiful and unique Christian lifestyle goods. You can shop our whole line at pink, salt, riot.com. I'll see you next week.