How Work Connects to Worthiness
I often get asked this question because of the name of my podcast… Work & Worthiness.
So… what the heck does our work have to do with our sense of self-worth, anyhow? I don’t know about you but for me it has meant… everything.
It has deeply impacted the way that I view myself, the actual work I produce, how I value my work & the overall degree to which I think I can succeed in my business.
A good litmus test to see if you are connecting your sense of self-worth to your business is to ask yourself these questions:
Have you ever felt the need to respond to clients outside of your work hours?
Do you feel guilty taking the day off, even though flexibility is one of the reasons you started your business?
If a client asks you to have a spontaneous phone call, do you drop everything and take it?
Have you wanted to raise your prices, but you worry that your clients will go find someone cheaper if they do?
Are you afraid to truly express yourself through your marketing because you fear what others will think of you?
Here's the thing about all of the above questions… those are usually stories we make up and project onto our clients or audience. We give away our inner sense of knowing to external forces. Of course, we have some experiences that validate those stories. I'm willing to bet, though, that more often than not it's coming from a place of fear and lack of trust within ourselves. How do I know this? Because I used to do it all.the.damn.time.
Work has often been the way that I feel worthy. And letting my imagination run wild with stories about how my clients felt about me dictated A LOT of how I used to conduct my business. I'd over-extend myself, violate my own boundaries, feel so much resentment, and eventually… burnt the f out. All because I thought if I gave everything I had to my clients, then they wouldn't leave me. If they stayed and were happy, then I would be deemed worthy.
It takes time, persistence, and a whole lot of healing to come to a place in our business where we feel fully confident, safe to express ourselves, and able to charge our full value (which is always increasing by the way). A place where we develop a deep sense of trust within ourselves and actually start to lead our business. Usually that comes from a place of such deep inner trust and a sense of self-worth because we know that if anything falls apart or away, we'll always have… ourselves.
You see, we’re not actually our business. As much as we feel like we are, and our brands are an extension of us, at our core we’re not our business. The one thing that is a constant in our business is our why. Colours, fonts, logos, website, messaging, voice, ideal clients, price points, offering suits, etc. ALL of it is up for evolving and change. In fact, it should be changing and evolving or it’s sitting stagnant (that’s a post for another time). The one thing that doesn’t change is our why. Why we do the work that we do. Why we feel we are here to help people. Why we choose to continue to keep bumping up against all of our self-worth wounds again and again… because we can’t imagine it any other way.
