Overcoming Unworthiness: The Battle Behind Your Breakthrough

There’s been a bear around our house.

It comes in the night, leaving its mugshot on Ring cameras and its scat in the woods.

Naturally, I’ve started dreaming about bears. Momma bears handing me their cubs for safekeeping. A bear casually strutting on two legs across our trail. A bear facing off with my dog.

I talked to a wildlife biologist about it. (His official title: Wildlife Conflict Manager. His job: to help humans not be jerks to the animals.)

He told me bears are incredibly shy and reclusive. I pictured a professorial bear with elbow patches peering over half-moon glasses, scribbling out his memoir inside a birch-bark hut.

Still, it scared me to think of sharing space with a bear. The whole they’re more afraid of you than you are of them can’t possibly be true. Not when it comes to cubs. And not when you have a 70 lb free-range Labrador roaming the woods each morning.

So I bought mace and a bear horn and I scour the woods for the shy professor on my walks.

And because I believe in signs, I wondered what it all meant.  

This Bear Has a Name: It’s Called Unworthiness

The answer was laughably close. I’ve been wrestling with my own recluse of a bear inside myself.

Its name is unworthiness. Aliases include: doubt, fear, and self-sabotage.

My debut novel will be published in just a few weeks. People keep saying, “How exciting!” and “You must be over the moon!”

Yes, I totally am.

Unless I’m curled up in bed under the crushing weight of unworthiness.

(Life hack: if you want to overcome unworthiness, just dare to reach your long-term goals and they will rise to the surface, swords drawn. No effort needed.)

Two weeks ago, the first formatted proof of my novel arrived in my inbox. It took my breath away. It was so polished, so professional. So REAL. My name over my words. These words I had submitted to agent after agent after agent for years. These words that had been rejected time and again.

These words that are only on these pages because I chose to publish them rather than waiting for the publishing industry to accept me. To validate my work.

To validate me.

(A micro-lesson on publishing: it’s a spectrum, with self-publishing on one end and traditional publishing on the other. In the middle is what I chose - hybrid publishing. The author partners with a publishing house, covers the costs, but retains full autonomy and all profits.)

Imposter syndrome doesn’t discriminate. It’s an equal opportunity pain in the ass. But there is something about deciding to make your dream come true that creates a double whammy of doubt.

There’s no trust fall here. It’s up to me to have my own back, to have enough belief to carry me.

But what if I don’t? What if I’m the one dismantling myself from within?

I sat before my laptop, suddenly swallowed by the quicksand of doubt. I knew I didn’t deserve it. Knew I had basically paid a team to make this ugly thing of mine beautiful. And that when everyone opened my book, they would be embarrassed for me that I thought this trash was worth investing in, that I thought it was any good.

Unworthiness is a narcissist in disguise - a self-absorbed lie that convinces us we’re in control. If we believe we’re the problem, we get to feel certain. But certainty isn’t the same as truth.

The Bucket with a Hole

I want to pretend this is the first time this has happened. That it’s just the bigness of publishing a book that has made me question my deservingness.

But really, it’s just another round in the ongoing work of overcoming unworthiness.

(I was so crippled by doubt and perfectionism when I sat to write this post I almost abandoned it. Ironic, no?)

I’ve spent my life trying to hide this unworthiness. From you and from me. I’ve painted over it, masked the stench with incense, and earned straight As to disprove it. I’ve tried to outrun it with hard work, used my confidence like a magician’s sleight of hand, and changed my name for a fresh start.

The truth: There is a bear living inside me and I keep shoving it into a dress and slapping lipstick on it hoping no one will notice.

But I notice.

I’m exhausted. There is nothing more tiring than hiding.

I’m like a bucket with a hole in the bottom, running around the world in search of something to fill me. I will trade almost anything for praise, for belonging, for validation – cramming these treasures into my bucket with greedy, frantic hands, desperate for the feeling, however fleeting, of being full.

But I can never be full because the goodness I’ve gathered is constantly leaking out through the hole in the bottom.

The solution isn’t to outpace the leak. The solution is to fix the damn hole.

And guess who has to do that? Me.

And, oh irony of ironies, guess what materials are needed for the repair? Self-validation. Self-permission. Self-worth.

That's right - we overcome unworthiness by granting ourselves worthy. How wonderfully difficult is that?

How to Fix the Hole in Your Worthiness

So many of us are waiting for that final piece of external validation that will turn our engine over so we can finally be powered from within.

I’ll like my body when I lose 20 pounds.

I’ll feel successful when I get the promotion.

I’ll feel worthy of love when someone finally treats me well.

I’ll know I’m a good writer when an agent signs me.

But it doesn’t work that way. We first must validate ourselves, own our worth, and then – and only then – can the world reflect it back to us.

I’m working on it. It is terrifying and freeing, has a very Wild West, lawless vibe. You mean we’re the one who decide we’re worthy?

Yes. US. Each of us.

And here’s what I’ve learned about that process. Every layer of worth is guarded by the most intimidating bear you can imagine: the beast of unworthiness.

Expect her to be there when you dare to fulfill your own dreams. Expect her hot breath to melt your wings when you try to lift off the ground. See her presence as a GOOD sign.

My nervous system wasn’t wired for worth. Few people’s are. (If you’re one of them, congratulations! Enjoy your uninterrupted flight!) For the rest of us, we must teach it to ourselves. That’s what overcoming unworthiness really looks like. And it’s bear-level scary.

This is the work:

To claim our power to choose our worth.

To repair our buckets and fill ourselves with our own permission and validation.

To stop looking to the world to give us our worth and instead tell the world our value.

We reclaim our worth one choice at a time—by no longer outsourcing it to others. Because after childhood, no one else can give us a sense of worth. It has to come from within.

Remember, bears aren’t inherently vicious. They are shy and reclusive. They only attack when provoked or are protecting something valuable (like a grill or a cub).

So let your unworthiness rear its ugly head. Let it roar and show its teeth. Because your bear is protecting something of tremendous value.

You.

(But keep this as a metaphor, okay? Don’t mess with bears.)