Negotiating your self worth
Quincy Jones once said: “Not one ounce of my self-worth is dependent upon your acceptance of me”. What a line.
I received a note recently from someone who asked me to give my thoughts on “Negotiating Self Worth”. It’s taken me a little bit of time to pull my thoughts together because I was trying to reflect on times when I’ve negotiated my own self worth.
While I’m still pondering over those times, I wanted to really understand what negotiate meant. I think we always think of it in terms of negotiating salary or benefits but I don’t believe I’ve ever thought of it terms of my worth. Or how I may have negotiated my value.
The dictionary says that negotiate/negotiable means open for discussion or modification. Another definition said something along the lines of “dealing with something difficult”. The dictionary says that self worth is the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person. When I think about negotiation, the first thing that comes to mind for me is compromise. It means that someone is conceded on one thing or another to reach a mutual agreement. And then the question came for me: Has there ever been a time in which I’ve compromised my self worth? The answer would be yes.
So if could finally get into the thick of it without the definitions. Self-worth essentially is what you think about yourself. It’s the value that you place on who you are. That value gets a little warped when we do certain things that are aligned to who and what we innately believe we are worth.
For me, my thoughts are less about negotiating your self worth and more about defining who you are. If there was one thing I remember from Michelle Obama’s becoming book, it was that she said “ If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others”. I’ve never heard it said better. So my question back to the listener of this question would be: Who are you? No I mean really? Who are you?
· What do you love about yourself?
· What do you dislike about yourself?
· What are you good at?
· What do you have challenges with?
· What makes you feel confident?
· What makes you feel less than?
· What are some of your wins?
· When have you failed?
· What are some things you value?
· What are some things you simply just don’t resonate with?
· What are some things you like and what are some things you simply don’t like?
These questions may sound a little bit like high school musical but they are questions that I have asked myself. They are questions that I have answered honestly. And the answers to these questions are what have shaped who I am today. I’m not always the most confident. And I can tell that when I make decision from places in which I don’t bring my full self, I compromise my value. I get less than what I really deserve and I end up frustrated. But who’s really to blame here? The person who happen to get more of me for less or the person who gave more for less? I wrote somewhere once that we’ve got to start accepting those things that are not perfect about us because once we do, no one can hold those things against us.
People don’t compromise our value. We do. We sell ourselves short time and time again because maybe we don’t feel like we deserve anything better. But that’s a voice in your head that you’ll have to figure out how to silence and overcome. We get better a recognizing our value when we get comfortable standing firm in what we deserve. There’s a quote that says something along the lines of our worth not being determined by someone’s inability to see it. However, sometimes we still cave here because maybe we feel like we won’t get anything better.
We compromise our value when we compare ourselves to other people. We use other people’s successes as a measuring stick for our own. We have to get better at staying focuses on our own lanes because looking to the left and right of us are the things that slow us down. We keep altering our paths because we’re trying to align to someone else.
I’ve said a lot today simply to say that your self worth is not up for negotiation. You have to use those questions that I asked earlier to really define who you are and stand firmly in that.
Before I go, I want to leave some suggested readings that I’ve thumbed through that may be helpful to you all as well:
Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year by Demi Lovato
The strength in our scars: Bianca Sparacino
I hope you find yourself out there. I hope you figure out your heart, I hope you figure out your mind. I hope you learn how to be kind to yourself, how to embrace the journey you are on. I hope you learn how to be proud of the person you are becoming, I hope you learn how to be proud of where you are — even if it isn’t exactly where you want to be. I hope you learn to fall in love with the process, with the messiness of life and the confusion of it all.