You can get everything you were told would make you valuable and still feel worthless.

I got into a Russell Group university with straight A's. I got a fast-track promotion at a top US bank. I dated men I thought were impressive and successful. Each one was supposed to prove something about me. None of them did, so I kept chasing the next one at increasing expense.

The usual advice is to stop looking for validation outside yourself. But that didn't work, because it wasn't just about what other people thought of me. These people were only vehicles for a deeper problem: what I measured myself by, how I judged myself.

I'd inherited a value system that did not serve me and wasn't mine. It took me hitting my rock bottom in my 20s and a traumatising situationship with a narcissist to see that and turn my life around.

And when I finally did, the answer was not where I'd imagined.

In this post, I'm going to walk you through exactly how I took apart everything I'd been taught about what to value and rebuilt it to serve me, so you can do the same.

Let's go back to the starting point.

Why did I, a Vietnamese kid, care so much about moving to the UK and getting into a top university here? Why did I care so much about the attention of some dude so different from me in every way whom I met on the internet?

It was because I was conditioned to value what they represented since I was very young. Things you probably wouldn't think to question either. Top UK university, a prestigious company, a six-figure job, of course I would want it, right?

But seriously, why?

For example, when I was in Vietnam, everything from abroad was automatically considered better. There's a term for it: sính ngoại, or xenocentrism.

The goal for kids like me then was to get into a prestigious university, studying STEM subjects, being academically excellent. If you become a doctor or an engineer or a CEO, then you've made it. Films and advertising repeatedly show you what wealthy, attractive, desirable people look like and that you should want to be like them too.

Before you've had much experience of your own, you've received thousands of messages about what and who matters and why.

Those messages formed my understanding of how life worked. So when I moved to the UK, I brought them with me and entered another value system that I believed could certify something about me.

When I came to the UK, I wanted its world-renowned education system to tell me where I stood. My Russell Group university asked me for A*AA. It must mean it was hard to get into this course here. If I did it, it must mean I was among the top.

Then I arrived and discovered that some course mates had received lower offers, something like AAB. So the significance I had given to meeting my grade requirements had no reliable basis. How was it even decided? As an international student, I had to pay significantly more and had to meet a significantly higher bar, for no clear reason.

This was the first seed of doubt in my mind about the value system I was carrying as my own. It didn't make sense to me.

Then the next self-worth audition stage was the workplace.

I thought if my university course couldn't certify me, then how about my employer? Everyone around me at university seemed to want to work for top investment banks, like JP Morgan. When I didn't get into its graduate scheme, I was really disappointed in myself. I automatically looked up to anyone who worked there.

Then later I actually got into JP Morgan and even got promoted in the same year. It was good for my CV and I did have access to a better network, but overall, it was just another corporate job. There was a mixed bag of people. I didn't feel any more worthy than I had always been - I was even underpaid. So instead of it certifying me, it was my turn to say, I was worth more, and I left.

That was me recognising my agency in declaring my own worth.

Along the way, my love life was actually where I had my epiphany that turned my life around.

During the time I was on my graduate scheme on a work visa, I was really lost. I hadn't received the validation I wanted from university or work. I was stuck and couldn't move jobs.

So the only place I could do anything about was my romantic life. I was particularly drawn to emotionally unavailable men because of my past traumas.

I also often got caught up by men who were ahead in their careers, especially if they worked at companies I admired. They represented a world I wanted to belong to so desperately, a world that I believed could make me feel good enough. Being chosen by one of these men would mean I had a place in it. That was my last attempt at proving my worthiness in a system that I had repeatedly felt like I was falling short of.

The breaking point was when I met a narcissist who was the poster child of everything I had ever wanted and thought highly of: top university, prestigious job, exciting lifestyle, easy-going and extroverted. I automatically placed him above me and sought his approval.

Yet, as I found out more about him, he didn't even meet the bare minimum when it came to basic qualities as a person - he was narcissistic.

This exposed a massive crack in this value system.

A person without basic decency when treating another person should be at the bottom of any scale, yet somehow, he was at the top, of not just my scale, but any public scale? So this scale I'd been blindly following didn't care about basic qualities of a person, especially qualities that were my strengths, like empathy?

This realisation came about because of another value system I was raised with, luckily. My family taught me to be decent and respectful to people, whatever their position. Most of the time, I didn’t notice these different rankings contradicted each other, because I assumed someone successful was also a good person. He showed me those two things were not the same, and there wasn’t one value system and universal truth about what was good or bad. It depends on how you look at it and what you use to judge it by.

It hit me that something had gone really wrong in the criteria I used to judge people and to judge myself if someone like him came out on top.

With these criteria, of course, I would always feel worthless.

This value system was set up for people like him, who looked like him, who had privileges like him. For me, a Vietnamese immigrant woman, to get there, there were barriers that went beyond skills and merit. There was so much resistance.

It wasn't only my background. I'm high-intensity and introverted, and those often aren't traits our culture celebrates. Being extroverted, easy-going, and confident is treated as the default for being likeable and successful. Susan Cain wrote a whole book about this, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, because the bias is so normal it's hard to even see.

And the shaming labels are loud: too sensitive, too intense, needy.

So I tried to change myself and be someone else, while hating who I was and denying my own gifts. It was exhausting, and I still felt like I wasn't doing enough.

For years, I turned all of this back on myself and my worth. But it should have been an outcry of, "Wow, this value system sucks." And that's what I eventually did.

What saved me was my writing. It was something that wasn't defined by any value system I knew of.

I had been writing since I was young. Friends in class wanted to read what I wrote. Later, I posted online in Vietnamese and gained a large number of regular readers. Then I began writing in English. As I kept sharing, people responded and thanked me. They felt seen and less alone. It meant so much to me.

Writing was something I did first for me. I didn't have to perform. I did it even when no one was reading. In my writing, I was just being me, and I was appreciated.

It made me see that my writing had worth. I had worth, and I had clear evidence of it. Even when dating the narcissist made me feel worthless, I knew it wasn't entirely true because of my writing and the people who supported it, and it gave me the power to fight back.

It confirmed to me that there are different ways of seeing the world, a way in which my strengths, my writing, and the people who love it get to be at the centre and the top, and I have agency over it.

It changed everything.

Clearly, the value system I had been using did not serve me and often placed me at the bottom. So I asked myself: if I built a value system from scratch, my own criteria for judging myself and the world I experience, what would be at the centre for it to serve me?

It would be my strengths, values, and needs. For example, empathy, reflection, authenticity. In practice, it means when meeting someone new, people who are empathetic, reflective, and authentic would automatically be more interesting to me, regardless of their success level, compared to someone who is successful but not showing any of these qualities.

This also helps affirm my values more and adds to my sense of worth over time. And it surrounds me with people who see me for me and who I can connect with meaningfully.

Another example is in my work. I left a Director-level role to run my own business full-time. By my old value system, that title was exactly what was supposed to certify me. By my new one, the question was different: Who do I want to serve? What work do I value? How do I design my daily life to suit me? I created a space for my own experiences and other people like me. And I didn't want another corporate title.

In my relationship, when I met my husband, I'd already stopped centering superficial factors and external markers of success. Instead, I put emotional availability and intelligence, empathy, and the ability to meet my emotional needs at the top of my checklist, and I focused on core qualities and values.

Don't get me wrong - I'm grateful for all the credentials I've achieved. I still use employer names and old job titles on my posts because I know what they signal. The difference is that now I use them strategically instead of being defined by them or hoping they could certify me. They are tools and resources, not a verdict on me. They no longer have a hold on me on a value level. When looking at them, I ask: What can they do for me? Not what do they say about me.

If I meet someone who is high-earning and works at a prestigious company, I can still use it to reason about them, but I hold it as information that needs more evidence. I don't automatically assume they're good people.

And that is a very important skill: discernment.

Honestly, the most valuable thing I got from my expensive Psychology degree was that it taught me to examine even claims that sound obvious. What is the evidence? Who participated? What was measured? How far does the conclusion apply? As a Vietnamese woman living in the UK, I need to ask whether the people and circumstances behind a finding even account for someone like me.

I now ask the same questions of everything I'm told to value and everything I see. Who says this matters? What's the evidence? Who does it serve? Does it apply to someone like me? And does it fit what I actually value?

Here's what that looks like, before and after:

This doesn't mean you have to give up your ambition. You can still want the degree, the job, the money. Just know 1) your why, and 2) that the game may be rigged against you, so don't let it decide your worth and find your own way to get what you want. Do whatever it takes. Use everything you have.

I still live in the same world, with the same rankings set by other people for the most part. Money still matters. Brand names still open doors. But I get to question all of it, trust my own judgment, decide what matters for me, and have my own rankings too. And build a life that has me as the default.

So I'll leave you with one question: what's one thing you were taught to value that you’re questioning now? Hit reply and tell me.

P.S. If you'd like to apply this to your dating life, join my Ruthless Dating Masterclass: Stop Hoping He's the One and Start Dating on Your Terms on Saturday 14 November, 6pm to 8.30pm UK time, live on Zoom.

Most of us were taught to judge ourselves and men on the wrong things. In this masterclass, I'll show you what to look for instead, so you can tell early who is serious, date like you matter, and stop wasting time on people who were never going to meet your needs.