We’re trained from an early age to let other people set our value: praise from parents, grades from teachers.
Your first job reinforces this, too: apply for the job, get judged for whether or not you can do it, then prepare for your annual reviews.
But when you step out into the entrepreneur space as a freelancer… who decides your value?
At first, you hand that responsibility right over to your clients.
“I’d like X, but you tell me… what have you been paying your people? That’ll be fine.”
“I’d feel bad to charge more than X…”
“X is too much? Tell me what will work for you…”
Eventually, though, if you want to move up the pay scale and into wealth territory… you need to be the one who sets your value.
You need to understand what problems your clients have, and how much those problems cost them.
You need to understand why clients hire you, and what your help is worth to them.
You need to understand how much your time is worth to you in exchange for the help you provide.
… And you can systematically raise your value as high as it’s possible to go.