After 7 years of working, I have reached a pain threshold of not defining my worth at work, and as a hard lesson learned from myself, I am asking you to define your worth
Today, I met up with some friends for dinner after work. We talked about what we were up to lately, work, and our future travel plans. You know…typical young working adult conversations :). We continued our fruitful conversation from the restaurant to this speakeasy (aka bar hidden underground) where we ended our conversation about our approach and confidence to asking for a raise at work. This topic really hit hard for me because I knew I was being underpaid and yet for the last 7 years, I did not fight for a raise or a higher salary.
On my drive home, something had clicked in my head that I had let my company define my worth at work for the last 7 years. I did not fight at all to ask for raises for several reasons:
- After I got my job after college, I didn’t know what my worth was as an engineer. My worth was originally in grades, but I didn’t have “grades” anymore. So I let the company decide what my worth was.
- I didn’t want to be greedy and ask for more money. I was taught by my parents to just take what I get, keep my head down, and work hard and quietly without making trouble.
I knew that people were getting higher raises than me, especially when they left the company; however, when a company pays you a “comfortable” (not to be confused with lucrative) salary, the willingness to define your worth as you grow at work weakens.
If you know you are worth more than what you’re paid, and you let that continue to happen, two things happen:
- The company will convince you that your value as an employee is not as high as it could be or just not that high at all
- This can cause bitterness to form inside of you and a drop in your work performance (which has often led to quiet quitting).
If you go down this route as long as I have, I can guarantee you that you will grow to be bitter. I’m down that road now and I’m telling you, it’s an extremely unenjoyable road to walk down. Holding onto that bitterness becomes tiring and toxic. The self pity and guilt of feeling stuck and undervalued at work will feed on your energy to live life more meaningfully.
Evaluation and commitment
So what’s the next step? I am re-evaluating what I believe my worth is at work (and outside of work) and re-committing myself to that level of worth.
If you don’t know your own worth, then start simple and ask yourself this: “What is my worth?…$50/hr? $100k/year?”.
Sylvester Stallone’s quote on self-worth in Rocky Balboa reminds me that my self worth is not determined by others – it’s determined by me. Your self worth is determined by you.
If you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her or anybody!
Rocky
I just had to share this revelation with you because it’s a raw experience and lesson that I wish I would’ve told my younger self. Your worth is tied to your time, which is your most important asset in life. It’s something I’m working on convincing myself daily.
Define and know your worth at work.
