5 Lies You Were Taught About Yourself and How to Unlearn Them

From the moment we were old enough to listen, we were told stories about who we are. Some of those stories came from family, teachers, or friends. Others came from society, whispered through beauty standards, school systems, social media, and expectations we never agreed to.

Most of those stories were never true.

Here are five of the biggest lies you were taught about yourself and how to finally unlearn them.

1. “You Have to Earn Your Worth.”

This is the first and most damaging lie. You’ve been conditioned to believe that your value is something to be proven,

through your achievements, your looks, your productivity, or your ability to please others.

But your worth isn’t something you earn. It’s something you already have.

How to unlearn it: Start noticing when you attach your worth to outcomes. Instead of saying,

“I did well today, so I feel good,”

try:

“I feel good because I showed up as myself today and that’s enough.”

Your value doesn’t fluctuate based on how much you do or how well you perform. It’s constant, unshakeable, and completely yours.

2. “You Have to Be Liked to Be Loved.”

We’re taught to keep the peace, to smile when we’re uncomfortable, and to say “yes” when we mean “no.” Somewhere along the line, we confused likability with love. People can dislike your boundaries and still love you. And those who stop loving you because you start honouring yourself? They were never loving the real you, just the version that served them.

How to unlearn it: Practice being disliked. Seriously. Let one person misunderstand you. Say no without explaining. Notice that your world doesn’t fall apart, it just becomes more authentic.

3. “You Need to Be Perfect to Be Accepted.”

This lie is everywhere, in schools, on social media, in how we measure success. Perfection promises safety: if you can just get everything right, maybe you won’t be criticised, rejected, or left behind.

But perfection is an illusion. It keeps you anxious, exhausted, and disconnected from your humanity.

How to unlearn it: Replace perfect with present. Ask yourself: What would it look like to just be here, now, messy, real, and still enough? You’ll realise that acceptance doesn’t come from flawlessness, it comes from authenticity.

4. “You Are Defined by Your Past.”

We all have stories, mistakes, or moments we wish we could erase. But your past is something you’ve lived through, not who you are.

You are not your trauma. You are not your failures. You are not the version of yourself that didn’t know better.

How to unlearn it: Shift from shame to understanding. When you catch yourself saying,

“I can’t believe I did that,

” try:

“Now I know better, and I honour the version of me who was just trying to survive.”

Your past built your strength, it doesn’t define your identity.

5. “You Need to Be Someone Else to Be Loved.”

From childhood, we were subtly told that being ourselves wasn’t enough. Too loud. Too sensitive. Too quiet. Too ambitious. So we learned to shrink, shape-shift, and hide parts of who we are just to belong. But every time you deny a piece of yourself, you drift further from the truth:

You are not too much. You were just too real for the wrong crowd.

How to unlearn it: Start reclaiming the parts of yourself you’ve buried. Your sensitivity. Your boldness. Your weirdness. Those parts aren’t flaws, they’re the magic you’ve been taught to mute.

The Truth That Sets You Free

You are not broken, unworthy, or behind. You are a product of the stories you were told and the moment you start questioning those stories, you begin to set yourself free.

Unlearning takes time, patience, and compassion. But every time you choose truth over conditioning, you come closer to who you were always meant to be.

And that, queen, is what radical self-acceptance really looks like.

 Ready to go deeper? WomenWhoSlay book Radical Self-Acceptance helps you unlearn the conditioning that keeps you small and rebuild your confidence from the inside out.

Download your copy now

By|womenwhoslay

@womenwhoslay