Your ability to value yourself, coupled with strong negotiation skills, are crucial when it comes to negotiating in the workplace. Whether it’s for a pay rise or the opportunity to work on new or bigger projects.
If you’re forever downgrading your skills, ability and experience, it is costing you more than you know. Here are four tips to help you value yourself:
1. Take inventory of your skills and experience
It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day treadmill that being a working mums requires of us, so much so that we can forget all the skills and experience we have built up over our working lives.
Don’t limit yourself to just what you’re doing in your current job – put pen to paper and list all your skills and experience, the software you can use the training and qualifications you have and skills you use to do your present and past jobs.
This will help you to determine your unique value proposition and will let you see that you have a lot to give and offer.
2. Fill in the missing gaps
While carrying out the inventory, it may become obvious that there are some areas where your skills and experience are lacking. Determine the skill sets that you need and make time to practice those skills regularly to gain more confidence in them.
If you need to go on a training course, or work towards additional qualifications then do. These days there are all types of flexible routes to learning, so don’t use the children, the cost or lack of childcare as an excuse. If you’re a lone parent, you can even tap into financial support to study.
If you’re unsure about the qualifications you need, be sure to visit our Careers Change section as a starting point. You can also contact the associations for your chosen sector for more advice.
3. Stop doubting yourself
If you’re prone to talking yourself out of things, being negative about what you can and can’t do, then make a promise to yourself to not let that stop you when carrying out this exercise.
Talking yourself out of doing something positive that will cause the changes you want to see in your life will mean that you won’t make any progress. This will probably make you feel even worse about yourself and your circumstances, and it will just keep going around in a viscous circle – but you can change that today!
4. Give yourself the same respect and value you give to others
Sometimes, when we feel down, it can be easy to look at other people around us and thin they’ve got everything order and start to feel subordinate to them. Don’t!
Even if you have the lowest graded job in your company, there is value in what you’re doing – don’t give yourself any less respect than you would give your colleagues, or the MD for that matter. You have a value and a place in your organisation, otherwise your job would not exist.
And finally, remember believe in your value and others will, too!
