Last weekend, I took my partner to a hot springs to celebrate his birthday.
I planned the whole thing. Made reservations. Organized meals. Invited a few friends. Conspired to make his favorite dinner on the third night. Didn't let him worry his pretty little head about cooking or cleaning or even making sure we had camping gear.
This was a very unusual experience for him.
"I don't think I've done a camping trip where I wasn't organizing it in some way since I was a teenager," he told me.
And alongside getting to relax more than this veteran, father-of-three is used to doing, the experience of being so pampered—and not just by me—started to chip away at a lie he's been believing most of his life.
The lie is:
I'm only valuable because of what I can do for you.
Maybe you believe this one too?
It's a common one these days, and underlies a lot of the frenzy, exhaustion, burnout, and hustle that run our world.
So what's the alternative?
Intrinsic worth.
What is intrinsic worth?
Intrinsic worth is trusting you're valuable simply by the miracle of your existing.
That your value comes from the inside.
It's inherent, essential, and contained wholly within you already.
NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO OR DON'T DO.
That's very different from extrinsic worth: the idea that your value comes from what you accomplish, produce, earn, achieve, or provide for other people.
Your brain may want to fight the idea of intrinsic worth.
Most of us have lots of conditioning in the other direction.
And just hearing the idea doesn't really make the difference.
It's feeling it in your bones.
Believing it.
What happens when your worth depends on being useful?
If somewhere inside you believe, "I'm only valuable because of what I can do for you," being useful stops being simply something you do.
It becomes how you prove that you're worthy of love, belonging, approval, or security.
That can look like working harder.
Taking care of everyone else.
Being the competent one.
Being indispensable.
Saying yes when you don't really want to.
Feeling guilty when you rest.
Struggling to receive without immediately finding a way to give something back.
It's easy to call all of that generosity or ambition.
But underneath it can be a much more exhausting bargain:
I'll keep proving my value so I don't have to risk finding out whether I'm valuable without all the doing.
Intrinsic worth is only one way to look inward
The trip this weekend started pointing my man toward this flavor of what intrinsic can mean, but there are others I work with people on.
Intrinsic motivation: What happens if you let what you naturally want from the inside out lead the way?
Intrinsic wisdom: What happens when you stop outsourcing the right answer to external forces and learn to tap into the deep truth that comes through all of us?
If you have a decision you're wrestling with, my Decision Grid is one of my favorite tools for separating what you actually want from fear, scarcity, and all the things you think you "should" do.
Intrinsic locus of control: That one's a bit of a technical term, but it means you believe that the fundamental force determining the outcomes and events in your life is YOU.
This kind of radical responsibility can completely change the way you relate to your circumstances.
What does it mean to live intrinsically?
For me, this isn't about pretending the external world doesn't matter.
Other people matter.
Money matters.
Circumstances matter.
Feedback matters.
Consequences matter.
It's about changing where the ultimate authority lives.
Instead of constantly asking the outside world:
Am I good enough?
Am I doing it right?
What should I want?
What should I choose?
What will make me valuable?
You begin to build a relationship with what's already inside you.
Your own desires.
Your own wisdom.
Your own aliveness.
Your own inherent worth.
This is closely related to what I mean when I talk about your Wild Genius: the creative intelligence that's already alive inside you, rather than something you have to achieve or manufacture.
Stop looking out there
I've got some cool things brewing this month to help you let go of your over-focus on the external.
To start turning up the volume on the intrinsic, wonderful, magical, meaningful forces just waiting to guide your life more.
I'm not quite ready to announce the details yet, but stay tuned…
You're not gonna want to miss this.
And in the meantime, here's a song I like that starts to help get this idea into your head.
Put it on and notice what comes up for you.
Ready to start looking inward?
Shifting from sourcing approval, security, and control from the outside to finding them intrinsically has been the most meaningful upgrade of my whole life.
The more I do it, the more joy, magic, creativity, connection, clarity, and abundance I find.
And I didn't get there alone, just by wanting it. It took help, guidance, and support.
This is the level of evolution and change I help my clients with.
If that sounds like a worthwhile project, book a free consultation and we'll talk about working together 1:1.
