Too many of my friends and colleagues worry about their place in the world. Some of them were recently laid off. Others, mostly the self-employed, have trouble getting clients or selling their products.
These people have this in common: they are no longer sure that anyone values their work.
That unsureness causes many of these folks to lose much of their self-esteem. That creates a reinforcing feedback loop, where they don’t feel good about themselves, so they can’t see their value. When they can’t see their value, they don’t let other people know. That makes it harder to find a new job, or a new client, or sell their products.
Some of these people have focused on their end goal: that new job, new client, or selling more. But I suggest an alternative: Focus on the value you offer and tell people about that. When I focus on my value, I’m much more likely to succeed.
That means you need to know your value.
How to Know Your Value
In Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit, I suggest that consultants assess their technical, communication, and influencing skills. See the image on the left.
But everyone needs to assess their value periodically. If you’re looking to change something about your position, you need to know what value you offer other people. That’s especially true for people making big changes, such as a new job, a new business, or retirement.
That’s because all your skills—your value—help you see what you can offer others. Even more importantly, doing this assessment will help you build your self-esteem.
Those three areas: technical communication, and influencing skills, are the most obvious. However, your personal qualities might be even more critical to understanding your value. Here are just four from the book:
- Initiative. You take the initiative to get clients, get referrals, and do the necessary work to succeed in an engagement.
- Curiosity. The more curiosity you have, the more likely you are to learn more and keep an open mind about your clients and their challenges.
- Adaptability. You can consider several options for many situations.
- Resilience. You can recover from setbacks.
Without these four personal qualities, people succumb to low self-esteem. But with these four qualities, people can rebuild their self-esteem.
Depending on the context, we often flex with these personal qualities. That’s why thinking about what we offer when and to whom can help us build our self esteem.
When Do You Use Which Personal Qualities?
Here’s what I recommend people do: Write down a recent time when you’ve used each of these qualities: your initiative, curiosity, adaptability, and resilience. You don’t have to write a whole story, just the time and context you used these qualities.
Now, ask yourself these questions:
- What’s common among these times and what’s different? (Do you use each quality together, separately, or combine them somehow, depending on the context?)
- Which quality do you tend to depend on most and which least?
- Do you use these qualities differently at work, in your community, or for yourself? When do you use which quality in which context?
As you start to examine each of these qualities, you might realize you have other questions or other data to gather. That’s great.
Now that you have data, what would you like to keep, change, or eliminate? And, how can you frame all your explanations of your value so other people recognize your value? Consider everything: your resume, web page, LinkedIn profile, and all of your marketing material.
Convince Yourself First
In the consulting book I said our first sale is to ourselves. We must convince ourselves of our value first. That’s why maintaining our self esteem is so important. When we start with showing our value to ourselves, we are much more likely to succeed in finding that new thing.
(If you are unemployed and looking for work, take a look at Manage Your Job Search. And if you want to start/restart your consulting, read Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit. Your can always read them via your library.)
Start with your value and show yourself evidence of what you can offer other people and when. That’s the first step in finding what’s next for you.