Embrace Your Inner Snoop Dogg
A valuable lesson on self-worth
What value do you have to offer the World? Do you know?
For some of you the answer arrives easily, for the rest of us it’s a stretch to come up with one idea.
Last week, I was challenged to write down twenty ways I am valuable and bring value to others. This assignment made me cringe.
The truth was, I didn’t see myself that way.
In fact, I spent most of my life feeling worthless.
Deeply believing my ideas and essence were replaceable, not enough, only alright.
I’d work my fanny off on a project and give it 150% only for it to go unrecognized.
For my efforts to be shrugged off, passed on, rejected, and forgotten.
This was the story I was telling myself.
The origin of this lie stemmed from one limiting thought:
“My work doesn’t matter, I don’t matter. Who cares.”
And I strongly believed I had evidence to back up this claim.
The first time I uncovered clues that this might be true was in 9th grade.
I was a star in my High School play.
I gave a lively performance in front of a thousand people.
I felt on top of the world as applause came rolling in at the end.
I curtseyed, the curtain fell, and I glowed.
That is until I went to the auditorium lobby, looking for my mother.
She was nowhere to be found among the raucous crowd of back-patting parents.
My heart sank.
I called her, “Where are you?”
She replied back, “I left when it was over, I have to help your brother at home.”
I hung up the phone and exploded into stardust.
As I watched my smiling comrades cradle arms full of red roses and bat away words of praise. “I am so proud of you!”
I had no one rooting for me in the lobby. I felt totally alone.
My single mother rushed home to tend to my brother instead of me.
Then that little voice crept in, “See your work doesn’t matter, you don’t matter, who cares.”
I took my mother’s leaving as a sign that I wasn’t valuable enough to stay. That what I had done on stage didn’t have any value, it didn’t matter. Who cares.
Without external validation, I considered my performance null and void. A worthless pursuit.
But is that true?
Of course not.
If the only reason we pursue something is to get applause from the outside world, we will never feel like enough on the inside.
Our hearts will break a thousand times in pursuit of external validation.
If the only reason we pursue something is to get applause from the outside world, we will never feel like enough on the inside.
Our hearts will break a thousand times in pursuit of external validation.
-Whitney Anne Ellis
Because the outside world and the people in it, won’t always recognize us, accept us or believe in us; they too are flawed, imperfect, striving for a back pat.
The only way to stop the vicious cycle of needing the like counts is to embrace your inner Snoop Dogg.
To believe in yourself when no one else is looking.
To show up for you.
To recognize your own growth.
To believe in yourself when everyone else says you can’t, you shouldn’t, you wouldn’t.
When Snoop Dogg received his Hollywood star, he made a speech I’ll never forget.
This speech represents a person who believes in his own value above all else.
It also demonstrates the necessary steps that lead to success.
Check it out:
“I want to thank me for believing in me, I want to thank me for doing all this hard work. I wanna thank me for having no days off. I wanna thank me for never quitting. I wanna thank me for always being a giver and trying to give more than I receive. I wanna thank me for trying to do more right than wrong. I wanna thank me for being me at all times, Snoop Dogg you a bad motherf**ker.” - Snoop Dogg
#snoopdoggmotivationalspeech
How would you approach obstacles differently if you started believing in yourself like Snoop Dogg?
How would you view your mistakes?
How would you handle not getting applause?
If you knew you were a bad motherf*cker.
You’d overcome anything, and keep going.
Whether you smashed it or fell on your face, you wouldn’t stop believing.
Believing in yourself takes work.
It involves training your mind to stop letting negative thoughts lead your life and your decisions. Minute-by-minute. Hour-by-hour. Day-by-day.
It involves raising your voice of confidence and lowering the volume on the one that says, “Your work doesn’t matter. You don’t matter. Who cares.”
Even as I write these words, that voice tries to stop me.
Its job is to convince me to play it safe, to stay in my comfort zone.
Well, I am a bad motherf*cker so I am going to keep typing, because guess what my work matters, I matter, and who cares? Me!
I care.
I bring value to the world by bringing my voice, my stories, and my authentic myself.
Someone out there will benefit from my work and my only job is to keep showing up and believing in me.
See the thing is, our value is intrinsic.
A god-given right. We were born with it.
You don’t have to earn your value, you simply need to recognize and claim it, and when you are ready share it.
You are enough.
You are more than enough.
Your very existence is valuable.
Your only job is to not allow the negative voices to tell you otherwise and keep showing up.
You have control over what you choose to believe.
Choose belief in yourself above anyone else.
And when times get tough, embrace your inner Snoop Dogg.
If this story helped you or inspired you please subscribe, comment below, or share with others.
Xo Whitney Anne Ellis
P.S. I am a Money Life Coach and I can help you. Learn how here
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