You Don’t “Deserve” It…
Our words have power. They influence how we perceive the world and others. They demonstrate what we believe about ourselves and what we believe is possible for our lives. Essentially they reflect the lens that we view our reality from.
As a counselor, I am always listening to the words my clients choose to use because those words reflect their subconscious beliefs. Their use of certain words guides us to the underlying belief, which is where we do our work. To make real changes in our lives, we have to address the beliefs on a subconscious level.
Our words give us clues about our beliefs.
Let’s evaluate a word that often reflects an underlying limiting belief, the word deserve. The dictionary defines deserve as “to do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment.)”
Now let’s look at how using this word can create problems in your life and with your self-esteem:
When I say “I deserve” or “I don’t deserve” then I am attaching this to my self-worth. Many people have a core wound of “I am not worthy” which then gets correlated with what I believe I deserve. If I don’t believe I am inherently worthy, I can never believe I am good enough to have the thing I want.
The word deserve is transactional. When I use this word, I have to earn the thing I want. My desire alone for it is not enough, which is the same thing as my subconscious telling me “you are not enough.”
The word deserve is subjective. Yes, there are some things in life that have to be earned, like a degree or a promotion. These things are concrete, I have to do X in order to get Y. Most people are using the word deserve in a more subjective fashion. Saying to themselves things like “I don’t deserve to be loved” or “I don’t deserve to have the life I want.” But what does somebody have to do in order to “deserve” love? Or “deserve” the life they want? If we can’t describe what we would actually have to do to deserve it, how can we allow ourselves to actually receive it? Basically, it’s making our goal unattainable because we don’t know what we have to do to get it.
Believing that we have to do something to deserve what we want holds us back. If my underlying belief is that “I am not worthy” and that I don’t deserve the thing I want, I am not going to allow myself to have it because the thing I want doesn’t match with my belief about myself. This can look like sabotaging a relationship because I can’t believe the person could possibly love me or can look like me staying in a job that makes me miserable because I don’t believe I deserve any better.
Using the word deserve externalizes your power. When you use this word, you are giving your power away. Someone else gets to determine whether you have earned the thing you want. If someone else has power over you, you will always have a feeling of helplessness.
Deserve reflects a black and white thinking pattern. Either I deserve it or I don’t deserve it, there is no in between. A black and white thinking pattern means I have to be perfect in order to earn something. And since I am human and therefore will never be perfect, I’ll never believe I’ve earned it.
My challenge to you, is to experiment with removing the word deserve from your vocabulary for the next 30 days and notice how it impacts your self-worth, motivation, and overall wellbeing.
If you do slip up and say (or think) “I deserve” or “I don’t deserve,” I want you to notice how that feels in your body. Notice if any physical sensations come up with it, a sinking feeling, a knot in your stomach, butterflies, etc.
If you do slip up and use the word deserve, don’t get upset with yourself, just take a breath, and replace it with one of the below options. Catching it is the first step to rewriting the underlying belief.
Replace “I don’t deserve to be loved” with “I allow myself to be loved.”
Replace “I don’t deserve an easy life” with “I choose to allow my life to be easier.”
Replace “I deserve to be punished” with “I choose to hold myself accountable.”
Replace “I deserve to be unhappy with “I can allow opportunities for happiness into my life.”
Notice the pattern? They start with “I” because this allows you to get back in the driver’s seat of your experiences and redefine your reality. You start allowing things to happen instead of having to earn them.
One last way to challenge those “I deserve” thoughts, is to ask yourself, “what evidence do I have that I don’t deserve it?” Evidence has to be something that can be seen, heard, or felt and would stand up in a court of law. “I feel like I don’t deserve it,” isn’t acceptable as evidence because feelings are not facts. If you can’t come up with evidence, then you have to start modifying the belief!
Don’t forget your homework: for the next 30 days remove the word deserve from your vocabulary and notice what changes.
Here’s to shifting your beliefs!
