Know Your Worth
Read about the benefits of knowing your worth. Learn how it can help you stop settling for mediocre results and teach you to find quality jobs, people, and self-confidence equal to your value.
Know your worth, understand your value.
It teaches you when to stay, it teaches you when to go.
And how to realize the difference.
Know your worth when it comes to your relationships with others.
I spent a lot of my early twenties trying to fit into what I thought someone else wanted. Be the perfect this, do the perfect that. Just so that I could get someone to see my worth and value me. But what I was really doing was lowering my standards to meet the superficial beliefs of someone else. It allowed me to fall victim to gaslighting, narcissism, and shallow relationships.
All the while I was never fully becoming me. I was ultimately doing it to myself. But ya know what? When I finally got to know myself and what I enjoyed, when I finally let that person out of her shell to do what she wanted to do, I loved her. She’s the most amazing, creative, caring, ambitious, intelligent… you get the picture, I think highly of myself. But it was a process to get here. I spent so much time trying to be something I wasn’t, that it took time to embrace who I needed to become. I left those relationships behind, and I learned my value and my worth.
Oh, and a warning, you will lose people along the way.
Not everyone will like who you become. They will say you’ve changed, you’re different, you aren’t who you used to be. Well, no shit. That’s the point of personal growth. But it makes people uncomfortable. They want you to stay down to their level. Because if you become a better version of the amazing woman you already are, how do they even begin to compete? If you start making progress towards owning your value, how can they manipulate you? This isn’t your problem. It’s theirs. Let them walk away, let them leave. Losing someone because of your growth, because they couldn’t accept differences in views and opinions, because they couldn’t see your value, because they couldn’t respect your boundaries, is not a loss. It’s a gain.
Once that baggage is gone, you will attract quality relationships. That’s what my thirties were for. I grew quality relationships by knowing my worth. Your personal growth should bring positive influences. It should bring people into your circle that want you to continue to grow. To see you shatter the things that are holding you back. To lift you up instead of keeping you down. To add value to you and your life instead of devaluing your worth. Find those people, they are your tribe.
Know your worth when it comes to your job.
My mom used to always have something to say when I switched to a new job. She figured I was being “young and dumb” by leaving jobs. What she didn’t understand was that the workforce is not what it once was. She expected me to demonstrate loyalty to a company by staying put. She was still under the impression that you had to devote yourself to a company, work a million years, be unhappy, and just wait around to retire.
But what about loyalty to myself?
I’ll never forget the first time I had to choose. To choose between a job I dedicated 5+ years to. A department I worked numerous roles in. A facility I practically grew up in. They threatened to fire me if I took my 4-week vacation. A vacation that they approved months ahead of time. They decided to share this news with me 3 days before I was getting on a plane to be with my family. They gave me a choice: keep my job or go on vacation. But really what choice was this? They were putting me in a position where my happiness was the only sacrifice. That was the first time I realized how little I am truly worth when it comes down to a company’s interest. And why it’s important that I understand and fight for my own worth. In the end, a job is a job. It’s a means to get to your goal, whatever that may be. It’s a tool, it’s a resource, it’s an asset until it’s run its course.
The beauty of my profession and many others is that there are unlimited possibilities.
I had a backup job offer in the event I did come home to my position being posted (bet your ass I got on that plane and left). The amount of facilities, departments, specialties, and levels we can dabble in is outstanding. I practiced quiet quitting and didn’t even know it. When a job stopped meeting my expectations, when it started to make me forget my value, I disengaged and stopped applying myself. I did the bare minimum when I clocked in, and I simply ran through the motions until it was time to clock out.
Job hopping is the expected norm now. I knew when it was time to leave when I started dreading going back for a shift. If you are unhappy, why stay? Because you are comfortable. Because you know the job. Because you don’t believe in yourself. You have the talent, the drive, the desire but you are extinguishing it by not understanding the value you bring. Find your value as it relates to your work, and you will learn when to stay and when to go.
It all comes down to knowing and understanding what you are worth.
Find your value and stick to it. Stop settling. If you don’t learn these aspects of yourself, you will buy into what others believe you are worth. You will lower yourself to meet the value others have set upon you. You will become someone you don’t recognize, someone you think society accepts. But do you? Spend some time with yourself. Get to understand your worth, get to understand your value, and start raising the bar in your relationships and in your job.
Until next week,
