“When you learn how much you’re worth, you’ll stop giving people discounts” – there’s a lot of truth to that quote. It’s about knowing your own self-worth, both in your work and personal life. Once you really get that you have value, you won’t shortchange yourself as much. You’ll understand your skills, time and efforts are valuable too.
The Danger of Undervaluing Yourself
Often in life, people tend to undervalue themselves in various ways. They may accept lower pay at work, tolerate disrespect from others, give too much of their free time to help people, give second chances even after being let down multiple times, or take on more responsibilities than they can reasonably handle just to please others.
This type of behavior stems from a lack of self-worth or a fear of rejection from others. However, consistently undervaluing your own time, effort and skills can lead to burnout, resentment, and missed opportunities for growth, promotion and fair compensation.
When you give others a “discount” by undervaluing yourself, you are not properly recognizing your own worth. Just like in a store, items are usually on sale or discounted because not many people were buying them or their expiration date is approaching. In other words, the item is losing value over time. Similarly, in our own lives, if you give others a “discount” by undervaluing your worth, it implies that you yourself are losing value when that may not actually be the case at all.
On the other hand, when you stop giving others these undeserved “discounts” and properly value your own time, skills and worth, you are acknowledging and respecting yourself. You understand your own identity and what you truly deserve from life and from your relationships and work. You know your self-worth and are confident standing up for fair treatment. That’s why when you learn how much you’re worth, you’ll stop giving people discounts.
Why We Give People Discounts In Life
In our day to day lives, it’s easy to shortchange ourselves in various ways. Whether it’s giving more of our time, energy or even undervaluing our self-worth, there are often psychological reasons we do this.
One factor is definitely the fear of rejection or disappointment. If we undersell ourselves, we think it makes us more likely to be accepted and approved of. Who doesn’t want that, right? By offering a bigger discount, we hope people will value us more.
Pleasing others is also a big motivator, even if it comes at our own expense. A lot of times we’ll lowball our worth so we don’t ruffle any feathers or cause conflicts. Keeping everyone happy seems like the safe choice in the moment.
And let’s be real, lack of confidence plays a role too. When we’re not totally sure of our abilities, it’s easy to feel like we need to cut ourselves a deal to make up for it. Or we think we need to out-discount the competition since they seem more skilled.
Ultimately, we all want to feel valued. But we have to make sure we’re not leaving money on the table, just to avoid potential rejection or conflicts. Our time and talents are important too.
