When I Stopped Proving My Worth, Everything Changed

A personal story about burnout, boundaries, and remembering my own worth.

It took me years of burnout and overgiving to realise that proving my worth to others was only taking me further from myself.

For years, I worked hard. Not just to do my job well, but to be seen doing it.

I waited for recognition, for someone to say: “You’ve done enough. You deserve more.”

That moment never came.

Instead, I kept finding myself in situations where I gave too much and received too little.

I returned to the same toxic workplace more than once, convinced that this time things would be different, that I could earn respect by working harder, being kinder, staying longer.

But the truth was, I wasn’t there to prove my worth to anyone. I was there because I hadn’t yet recognised it myself.

The turning point came quietly, through a single email. My boss had sent it to the wrong person, complaining that pregnancy had “made me lose my mind,”simply because I had asked to be paid for the extra work I’d done.

I remember sitting there, tears streaming down my face, hand on my belly, realising: If I keep allowing others to define my value, my child will grow up believing that’s normal.

In that moment, something inside me shifted permanently.

I promised myself that no one ever again would decide my worth for me.

That promise became the start of my transformation. I chose to leave that environment, to rebuild my career on my own terms, and eventually found my calling in helping others do the same through Rapid Transformational Therapy.

Because we don’t need permission to value ourselves. We just need to remember that our worth has always been ours. It was never up for negotiation.