How to convince yourself you’re worth your rates
(Transcribed from the Freelance Fairytales Podcast)
Freelancing, working for yourself, and side hustling is majorly a mentally disciplined pursuit. It’s why your innate talent and penchant for creativity isn’t the key factor in determining your success today. Everything that you have in your life right now is a result of your mindset and how you think about things. Odd that they didn’t teach us this in school. Kids who were really good at tests or memorizing flash cards (talking to myself) did well. Those who couldn’t memorize flashcards received bad grades and were already set up for a worse selection of colleges, before they were even 18 years old. How stupid is that?
Ok sorry tangent. Your mental development is key in your success as a freelancer. You’re going to sit there and say to yourself: am I an imposter right now? Am I really worth these rates? Am I pulling a fast-one over on people? Do I really deserve to make $50 at home, every single day? Why ME? Why am I deserving of such good money and freedom?
You Are Deserving of a Successful Freelancing Business
I have thought all of these things. In fact, I still think them. I’d say this is a huge roadblock for me and one I still struggle with. I still struggle to develop a self-talk that I guess you could say, is egotistical in nature. Not everything about the ego or being egotistical in a way is bad. If you’re the opposite, and all you do is think about other people and their happiness, you’re not going to live a very fair life. This is a trap I fall into a lot due to my childhood and some of the adults around me. I always think about other people at a gathering and how they are doing/feeling/reacting to the setting. Never about how I am feeling. I am working hard right now actually to unpack this part of myself - both for my personal and professional life.
But I can tell you a little secret right now in this recording that is hopefully going to change how you think about all of this: anyone who commits themselves to waking up and putting themselves out there, is worth whatever they are charging. Period. The question is, have you done the research to set your rates to match your marketplace? You may be worth $100 an hour, or even $400 an hour. But you have to put yourself into places where people are willing and ready to pay that. That part is on you. But the fact that you woke up today, opened your laptop, and devoted your time to doing something new, like freelancing, makes you worth what you are charging. You are amassing invaluable experience every single hour you do this that the next person just starting out doesn’t have - yet. I wouldn’t say I am the most prolific writer the world has ever seen - but I am an efficient one. I always show up and I never make excuses when it comes to my work. I am never late and I am always willing to learn something new. Fall in love with learning - that’ll make this entire process easier on you, trust me.
You Have to Truly Believe in Your Worth
So how do you start the process of convincing yourself that you are worth your rates? The person worded this question well, because that is what this is: convincing yourself. It all starts in your head. If you truly believe you are worth your rates, people are going to pay them. Your confidence will be tangible. It’ll radiate out of you through your laptop to the other person, and they will without question buy from you. This is one of the reasons is can be harder for women than men to break into business - women naturally second guess themselves while men come with a certain level of ego (no hate, this is just biology) that makes it easier for them to exert confidence. Confidence is key in all of this. Even if you’re not 100% confident yet, that’s where the saying fake it til you make it comes from.
I learned early on that exerting confidence was required to receive respect from my clients. The more confidently I acted, the fewer 1 star reviews I received. How did I develop this ability to act confident? The answer is actually very obvious and boring: time and experience. Each day I signed onto fiverr, from the first week to the first year, I had accumulated personal experience that set me ahead of the person signing on a year later. Knowing that in your heart is what makes you feel worth your rates. Knowing that you have busted your ass for months while someone else is still second guessing trying will give you that confidence you crave. There’s no special potion you can drink that’ll just make you confident. Pushing through fears and conquering failures is what brings confidence, a confidence no one else can take from you.
The Most Important Thing to Do: Just Start
I know it’s not the answer people always want to hear, but I am always going to be honest with you guys. Convincing yourself you’re worth your rates will naturally come when you get on Fiverr or wherever it is you are freelancing and just do the damn thing, every single day for months. Even if it’s just a few hours per day, or even if its 4 days out of the week. One thing will lead to another, and suddenly, you will just know in your heart that your time is worth the money you are charging. The hardest part is those first few months when you are doing this brand new without the experience. Those are the months that will make you. They are essential in shaping you into the freelancer you were born to be. Almost 8-years later and I still think back to those first few months. They were hard, don’t get me wrong, but they were exciting too. Have fun with this! Don’t overthink everything so much. You can change your rates whenever you want. This is YOUR business. We’ve been so brainwashed in 9-to-5s to hand over our autonomy to bosses and managers that we are actually scared to have control back - it’s common with brainwashing victims, and it happened to me, too!
Bottom line is you are worth what you believe you are worth. See what I did there?