Are you being paid what you’re worth?
I was chatting to a guy yesterday who told me his wife had just set herself up in a new business and was experiencing the pain of not feeling good enough to take money from people.
It isn’t that she’s not trained well enough - she’s passed all the necessary qualifications to perform the beauty therapy she offers and has hours of practice on volunteers, but she’s been second-guessing the quality of her paid work even when her clients are delighted with their treatment.
You know what? That’s not a bad sign.
It means she’s deeply committed to providing exemplary service to her clients.
However, it’s potentially very damaging to her mental health and it could ultimately kill her business if she doesn’t understand it’s all part of the process of growth.
I remember the pain of charging for my coaching work when I first started out 15 years ago.
I’d get worked up into a lather before each session and felt terrible about taking £20 from clients for an hour’s work, even when I felt as if I’d made breakthroughs with them, because I didn’t feel as good as the big name coaches I’d been following.
Of course, I carried on reading books about confidence and mindset all the way through those horrible, awkward months, but the thing that made the most difference was continuing to show up, do the work and ask for money even when it felt hard.
There is no substitute for action when it comes to building confidence, and many of us forget this once we get past the age of 10 - self-consciousness kicks in and we’d rather stick to what we know we can do well than brave the fear of making mistakes and embarrassing ourselves.
When you understand the internal pain and resistance is just your ego doing its best to protect you, you can thank it then politely tell it to stand aside whilst you get on with what’s necessary.
Will it be easy? Almost definitely not.
Currently, I’m battling away building my skills at recording videos. My ego says I’m crap at videos and I should stick to writing.
The stronger part of me says I’ll help more people if I get more posts out on social media, so I’ll keep plugging away in the knowledge that I’ll eventually find it easier.
Having a coach in your corner can be a huge benefit when your ego is getting in your way.
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