The question of worthiness has been coming up a lot in conversations lately. Not just my own worthiness, but friends and colleagues are expressing their anxiety around their worth and what it takes to feel good about being compensated for their gifts. There's no chart on the wall that helps us navigate this, and I think that as we become a workforce that's more 'gig' based and less dependent on the long corporate tenure, this will be a question we need to face with more regularity.
So, what does it mean to 'know your worth?' I thought I knew and I felt pretty confident about what I thought was reasonable compensation for my skills, until.....I hit resistance from the very people who were working on my behalf to place me in a contract. So, a lot of deep breathing and reassuring self-talk that it was only a matter of time before the right opportunity presented itself, right? Is there something going on in the market that's causing the opportunities to dry up? Are there more qualified people out there who are getting placed? AM I ASKING FOR TOO MUCH? The answer to these questions is probably 'no', but it still feels a bit weird for me. I have to put on my patience-pants and hold on, but I don't like this feeling.
I had to do some deep work with my coach to uncover what was really going on inside. What I realized was I had convinced myself that I need to suffer and sacrifice before I felt worthy of making money. Talk about a limiting belief!!
Stories and beliefs like these take root when we're quite young as we attempt to make sense of the world. They get stuffed way down deep where they are hard to access, yet they are become the basis for our decisions! That's right, your 8-year-old-self made an assumption about how the world works and it's still playing quarterback calling the plays today! What I found odd is, I thought I had already worked through this limiting belief well over two years ago and yet, here it was again, but it showed up in a new way -- 'new level, new devil.'
The story I replaced my limiting belief is that this is an amazing time to work on my future self as a coach and an artist. To give myself the gift of rest and reassurance that everything will work out in time. Ok, that feels better, and they are words that I do honestly believe.
I chose a journal spread for this post today because it shows a wintery scene. In a lot of ways, that's how I'm feeling. Winter is a time to build stronger roots and store up some energy for the spring. A bit of hibernation and reflection are always welcome in the winter, along with hot tea and warm mittens.
I'm still feeling a blindsided by this limiting belief surfacing again, but thankfully I have the support I need to surface my own issues and work on them. We all have things we need to work through. It's just part of living as a human and the mixed blessing of having language. On one hand, language is a very useful tool for making sense of the world, but if we get stuck in a story that's not actually true, it can really hold us back.
Here are some questions you can consider as you're working on defining your worth. What do you do well? What makes you feel valued? What can you uncover about yourself from times that you feel stuck?
Here's to leaning into our full worth and valuing what we bring to the world!
Until next time,
XOXO
Ann