'How I Found My Worth'

New research reveals 94 per cent of Australian women experience low self-esteem, and nearly 70 per cent say selfdoubt is their biggest block to success. To this we say, enough! In order to reverse these stats, marie claire has partnered with beauty giant L’Oréal Paris to launch our Know Your Worth campaign, supported by female game-changers, including cover star Jessica Mauboy. Here, they reveal their journey to self-worth in the hope of helping others find their power

- Alley Pascoe

It’s the year 2000 and an 11-year-old Jessica Mauboy is nervously walking on stage at her first-ever singing competition: the Adelaide River Country Music Talent Show. She’s wearing a velvet vest and skirt set with a cowboy hat and hoedown boots her mum hired from a fancy-dress shop. Backstage, the other performers are tuning their guitars, comparing notes with their bands and doing vocal exercises. Mauboy doesn’t have an instrument or a band or a vocal coach, she only has her backing track on a CD. She feels out of place. Standing on the stage in front of the crowd and judges, she keeps her eyes closed as she begins to sing Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine”. When Mauboy opens her eyes at the end of the song, the crowd erupts into grand applause. She takes a deep breath and holds her head high. “That was a defining moment for me because my deep passion for music overrode my fear,” says Mauboy, 31, who won the talent show. “Now, when I have moments of doubt and low self-esteem, I think back to that little girl on the stage. Even though I was afraid, I made it then and I’ll make it now.”

It’s a memory she has conjured many times in the past year, one of enormous change for Mauboy. She left her record label of 14 years, parted ways with her long-time manager and took total control of her life, career and music. “I knew I needed to do things my way and take the reins,” she says, admitting she was filled with fear over the decision. “Last year was probably my lowest and also my highest because I gained so much strength. I feel the most free I’ve ever felt.”

JESSICA MAUBOY