Understanding Your Value
If you don’t know what you are worth, no one else will either.
Many people are consciously or subconsciously afraid of success. It can cause people to feel guilty for making money and withdrawing from their importance, thus never truly realizing their worth.
What is your philosophy on success and money? Is it helping you or keeping you from what you want to achieve in life?
These feelings of guilt often undermine a person’s ability to drive toward achieving personal and professional value and worth. We live in a society (especially among women) where confidence and self-promotion are not always looked upon as positive attributes.
Whether you realize it or not, these feelings affect how you interact with your spouse, kids, peers, direct reports, boss, friends, etc.
Women tend to be most guilty and have the tendency to downplay their impact, value or role in a situation, especially in professional situations. In downplaying their impact, it impedes their ability to negotiate for what’s next in their career, promotions, and salary.
The fact is: no one “deserves” to be financially successful. Deserving something is equivalent to being entitled. We do the work and earn something. When we think we “deserve” something, we stop fighting for it. Stop expecting life to give you what you think you deserve, when perhaps you haven’t done enough to earn it.
Define for yourself what “doing the work” is, so that you can prove to yourself that you are valuable. From there, you should be empowered to negotiate on your own behalf to get the fee/salary that you feel you have rightly earned.
For me, guilty as charged….
After much reflection, much of the above was me. I had a professional epiphany a while back with lightning bolts coming down, and I realized that I provided more value and was better than my competitors.
For me, I needed evidence from industry peers that I was good enough. It took unbiased individuals in a Mastermind Group that were advisors in different geographies to enlighten me. After seeing my business model, I realized that I delivered 3 times what they were providing to their clients for the same money. This evidence was enough to get me fired up to understand my value and bill for what I am worth.
Sometimes it is when we feel most hurt that we are able to realize that we need to change. It can be frustrating to lose money on a client relationship or watch your peers making significantly more money for doing the same job.
At what point will you take action to start shifting your mindset to analyze and get the data that you need to fully understand your financial value?
Capitalism is a beautiful thing. There is nothing wrong with money and financial success. It’s all in how you view it.
