The path to valuing ourselves more

We can too often undersell ourselves and our brilliant ideas: perhaps when we're contributing in a meeting, attending a job interview, volunteering at an event. How can we get out of feeling less and move up up up towards realising we are worth so very much more?

When we're busy thinking and working, we can skip right on past the value we bring. You know how one project can finish and you barely have time to pop a celebration balloon before the next project is off and running? Sometimes we don’t allow the space to see value. No space, time or room to notice anything.

I see there's a need for us to notice ... to IDENTIFY value in ourselves. And yes, value can be easier to see in others than ourselves.

Have you heard when people are praised or congratulated on something, their response can be, ‘Oh it was nothing.' Aaaah excuse me ... it absolutely was something!

To lift your value be sure to stop and look at it, recognize it and notice it. And if you're a leader of others, ensure there is time to acknowledge, recognise and see the value people have and bring.

ACTION: Take a moment, identify the awesome you’ve done, how you did it and how it helped.

When we don’t know, deny or doubt our value ...

... we prevent people from experiencing our thoughts, ideas and purpose.

Many of us spend so much time - err, waste so much time - in cycles of doubt and denial of our own ingenuity.

⏹ When we say ‘I’m not creative’, we're in denial and doubt of our value.

⏹ When we say ‘It’s not very good’, that's denial and doubt too.

⏹ And when we dismiss an idea before we’ve even spoken it or shared it, that's another negative hit to our value.

So let's zip it. Ssshhh!

In workshops and sessions with teams, I’m often saddened at the number of people who openly dismiss their own work and ideas ... usually just before they’re about to present them! 'This isn't very good', or 'This is a crappy idea' - hey, no more of this stuff, ok?

Hold off on verbally denying the value in your thinking or ideas.

If you think your stuff is worth less, who’s likely to think it’s worth more? 

Knowing what you are worth

Do you accept or reject your worth?

I was reading how 'value’ is from French, Latin descent meaning ‘to be worth'.

When mentoring people 1:1 and working with teams in organisations, this is a theme I see many of our issues and challenges originating from. And this worth or value isn't just price, salary, bonus or other monetary value.

It’s about what you believe your time is worth, your ideas and contributions, what your skills and services are worth, your talents and expertise, what your involvement and commitment are worth.

Have you ever felt resentful when you’ve given so much yet received little in return?

Or the reverse ... where you received a lot and didn’t have to give much at all!

How often do we focus on what value we are giving ... and getting?

A leader recently gave her team permission to leave any meeting if its not making use of their time or the expertise they have.

The value equation is one we need to understand better and apply in our own world. We have much to value in ourselves. It’s that we don’t know it, deny or doubt it and this holds us in the ‘worth less’ zone. 

But you do need to capture something...

I've called out the information overload behaviour we have of writing too much down in a training program, meeting or at a conference. We don’t need to write it ALL down. But we do need to write something.

To all you ‘sponges’ reading this who sit in meetings and conferences thinking you can ‘soak it all up’, without actively capturing any notes... ummm you can't. This is precisely a behaviour that can worsen cognitive overload.

We do nothing, sitting passively, letting information supposedly flow over or through us, thinking we’ll remember it and absorb it. But like all sponges, we fill up - and sooner than we think.

A participant in a workshop sat all day with arms crossed, nothing written down. ‘I can remember it,’ she said, ‘I have a photographic memory.' But she didn't remember it and later showed how she'd missed plenty. Given her leadership role, number of direct reports and her responsibility in the organisation, it was poor role modelling and self-management.

It’s a foolish denial - and a cognitive load coping error - to not write something.

Don’t write everything.

And don’t writing nothing.

But absolutely... write something. 

You don’t need to write (or type) it all

I’m talking cognitive load coping this week; how to handle all the information we’re exposed to.

The times when we need to use cognitive load coping the most include training, meetings, conferences, conversations, coaching; whenever people are thinking and talking together and information is shared.

This information can be:

🌕 written: a report, presentation or a pack of information; or

🌕 spoken: the verbal part of a presentation or conversation.

Plus our own thinking process.

We need to manage our own cognitive load better than we do.

Here’s one of the biggest tips I can give you: You don't need to write (or type) everything down. We can write or type w-a-y too much information in an attempt to ‘catch’ or ’trap' what's happening and what's being covered. But some of the information may not be ‘worth’ catching or trapping! Yet we do it. And it makes our cognitive load worse.

Notice the feeling of wanting or needing to catch and trap so much information. You don’t need it all.

Are you a catcher or 'trapper' of information? Do you want to catch it all?