KNOW YOUR VALUES

I had a situation where I had to set a price on what I’m worth. The other party in the agreement didn’t see my worth. They saw me as being worth no more than half what I perceived.

All of you reading this have had related experiences. You’ve had to demonstrate your value and the other side’s outlook has been different.

In this article, I want you to learn how to know your true value so you will never sell yourself short again.

Your dreams are too valuable to just give them away for free.

Here’s how to understand your true value:

Let's understand with one story which I admired most.

The fish loved the river. It felt delightful swimming around in its clear blue waters. One day while floating closer to the river banks it listens a voice say, “Hey, fish, how is the water?”.

The fish raises its head above the water to see who it was. It sees a monkey seated on a branch of a tree extended over the water.

The fish replies, “The water is nice and warm, thank you”.

The monkey feels jealous of the fish and wants to put it down. It says, “why don’t you come out of the water and climb this tree. The view from here is amazing!”

The fish feeling a little sad, replies, “I don’t know how to climb a tree and I cannot survive without water”.

Hearing this the monkey makes fun of the fish saying, “you are totally worthless if you cannot climb a tree!”

The fish starts thinking about this remark day and night and becomes extremely discouraged, “yes, the monkey is right”, it would think, “I cannot even climb a tree, I must be worthless.”

A sea-horse sees the fish feeling all depressed and asks it what the reason was. Upon knowing the reason, the sea-horse smiles and says, “If the monkey thinks you are worthless for not being able to climb the tree, then the monkey is worthless too cause it cannot swim or live underwater.”

Upon hearing this the fish suddenly recognized how skilled it was; that it had the ability to survive underwater and swim freely which the monkey never could!

The fish feels grateful to nature for giving it such a marvellous skill.

This story takes from Einstein’s quote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”.

Take a look at our education system that judges everyone based on the same criterion. Coming out of such a system, it’s easy for many of us to start believing that we are actually less gifted than others. But the reality is far from it.

The fish in the story achieves self-realization. It realizes what its true power was thanks to its friend. In a similar way, the only way to realize our true potential is to become self-aware. The more awareness we bring into our mind and body, the more we realize our true potential. In this respect, the practice of meditation is your best friend as that’s the only path to self-realization.

Believe in yourself above all else.

You can’t put a value on yourself except you believe in yourself first. This means you have to believe the following:

• You can achieve results
• You can execute
• You are passionate about what you’re doing
• You do have goals
• You can do something special — or even impossible

In this recent situation where I had to put a value on myself, I led the negotiation with the realization that I’m going to change the world through entrepreneurship and personal development.

I believed in myself when maybe nobody else did.

“Your value is directly linked to your belief”

Knowing your value means nothing if you don’t know how to communicate it. You have to communicate your value with respect and remove your ego from the equation.

“Replace ego with a belief in yourself and that you are enough”

Value comes down a lot to how you describe it and the way you communicate it.

Knowing your true value will help you in every aspect of business and life. It will make your decision-making skills sharper and you’ll be able to figure out the ideas, people, and challenges you should align yourself with.

Above everything, believe in yourself.

“Know your worth. People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.” – Kanye West

Hope you will find something beneficial in this article. If Yes, then please like & comment your opinion for this article.

-RaviRaj Langhnoja (Entrepreneur)