After decades of unequal pay for U.S. women, we need to continue shoring up our self-worth so that we can better value — and demand — our work’s worth.
Rationally we may acknowledge that our work’s worth shouldn’t be tied to our sense of self-worth. Sometimes it feels hard to separate the two. Which comes first: self-worth or establishing our work’s worth? Is this another proverbial chicken or egg scenario?
Gendered Indies
The Freelancers Union estimates that 1 in 3 adults now work independently in this country. A private research firm, The Aberdeen Group, says there are 81 million indies (26% of the U.S. workforce). This is a revolutionary transformation of the U.S. workforce. The UK is similarly experiencing the rapid growth in the indie sector.
This indie workforce is highly gendered: 71% of freelancers are women between the ages of 30 and 50 according to an international study completed in 2012.
I’m one of those indie women.
Whether we’re called self-employed, contractors, small business persons, freelancers — during a project with a mega-international corporation we were introduced as “1099rs” — there’s an explosion of hustling unsalaried, non-benefitted, indie-workers are writers, designers, IT project managers, social media experts, marketers, consultants, coaches, and more.
One thing I’ve notice about indie women colleagues, seems we’re all wrestling with the uncertainty of valuing our worth.
Within the last week, a writer colleague with over 30 years of experience and many books to her credit shared her hesitation about setting a reasonable fee for writing a book for a client. A consultant with 20 years success in strategic planning and Board training can’t figure out what her work is now worth in this continuing Great Recession. She’d just found her valuation-groove when the U.S. collapse hit. Another well-established indie woman told me that after many years of lucrative consulting, she still has to spend ample time with clients to get them to understand that her fees include office operations and taxes, etc.
These experiences are ongoing for us indie women and are one reason that we need to continuously reinforce our self-worth so that we can successfully address the work’s worth issue we face in this brave new working world.
Tips for Strengthening Self-Worth Aligned to Work-Worth
1) What one “fact” about you comes to mind first that gives you a feeling of professional worth? Reflect upon why this one thing rose to the top first.
2) In 5 minutes, how many other facts can you list? Remember, just the facts — not the feelings.
3) Think back over the last few projects or contracts you’ve worked on. Write a sentence, or just bullet points if that helps get this out quickly, about what you did to make the work successful. (If you have more time, browse through job descriptions that involve those kinds of responsibilities: what are those salaries and benefits?)
4) Access a trusted colleague who can confirm or help you refine your list.
5) Get help setting your work’s worth. The Freelancers Union has blogs, tips and tools to help: www.freelancersunion.org.
Finally, there is honor in paying one’s bills so grab hold of that honor as you continuing reminding yourself of your worth!
As Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love reminds us:
Make your work an expression of love, in service to mankind. Within the worldly illusion, we all have different jobs. Some of us are artists, some of us are business people, some of us are scientists. But in the real world that lies beyond all this, we all have the same job: to minister to human hearts.”
As always, #PeaceHugs from me to you!
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