5 Important Ways To Go For What You Are Worth In Your Career

This is the time for you to go for what you believe you are worth in the marketplace. You absolutely owe it to yourself.

This is something that I want you to take in because I do believe in this strongly. There’s been times in my career (and my life for that matter) where I have short changed myself in several different areas. I’ve given my time, talents and expertise to ventures and opportunities that haven’t panned out and not equipped me with what I’ve needed to progress to where I want to be in my career.

It’s only now at 28 that I’m seeing that I should have been more intentional with my moves when I was younger in terms of building my value in the marketplace and more intentional in terms of where I wanted to go in my career in general.

What I want people reading this to know is that it’s never too late to start working towards the opportunities you want, but you have to start being serious about building your value in the marketplace. As you build your value more then you will be able to leverage more and better opportunities. You will be able to be in a place where people are seeking you out rather than always being someone who is needing to sell yourself to secure opportunities.

This is the time for us to be serious. Read below because here are some of the things I’ve learnt in terms of building our value in the marketplace. This is for entrepreneurs and people in full / part time work (the way life is, many of us fall into these 2 categories anyway.)

Build Your Portfolio

This is such an important part of building your value that we all need to put our effort into. It’s going to be so hard for you to reach the levels you want to reach in your career without a proven track record or a strong portfolio of work that you’ve done that shows that you are competent and worthy of whatever opportunity you would like to secure for yourself.

Your portfolio is the work that you’ve been a part of, or the achievements that you’ve had, or the audience and engagement that you’ve generated. These are the things that the people who are involved in where you are looking to go in your career, care about. Why would anyone give you an opportunity when they haven’t got any serious reference that you are someone that they can trust?

That’s why it’s so key to build your portfolio as fast and as well as you can. No matter what industry you are in or want to be a part of, the better your portfolio, the better opportunities you will be able to leverage and that’s just it. A strong portfolio increases your chance of being able to garner the situation that works best for you because you have clout and a reason for others to take you seriously.

If that means that you need to start off working for free or a small fee in the means of starting to build a portfolio and reputation then of course it will have its benefits later as you will have something tangible to show people.

I urge people to not fall into the trap of working for free for a long period (unless it is a serious hobby) because you deserve to be compensated for your efforts, never think differently. If you need to work for free or small pay then do what you need to do and get out as fast as you can as many will aim to take advantage of your talents. The most important thing you need to know is your portfolio will get you into the doors that you want to get to so make an effort to develop it the best way possible.

I told myself if I want to build a serious career as a writer then I need to write as much as possible and get out there with it. The more I write, the more I’ll be able to establish a voice/niche and thus I’ll be able to write better and more consistently. The more work I write that gets viewed then the better my portfolio will look and the more clout I’ll have to be able to leverage more opportunities to write and be compensated accordingly. But it all starts from that initial intention of choosing to build my portfolio because I see the benefits of doing so.

Don’t Let Yourself Get Comfortable

Now, this is definitely not a post to tell anyone to quit their job or leave whatever situation that they have going for them. However……..

I was in a job for 3 years, of which I wanted to leave for about….2 of those years, but stayed because ultimately I felt ‘comfortable’. I didn’t enjoy the job at all but I said it was going to be hard to find another one and after some rejections from interviews I went to, I ended up staying in a situation where I was feeling jaded, demotivated and in full knowledge that I wasn’t getting paid anywhere near what I could be getting paid somewhere else. That is not going for what I was worth at all.

Ultimately I had to take a leap of faith and walk out of that job, just to have time to properly apply for jobs that were more suited to what I wanted in terms of a package. I eventually did find a better role for myself.

What I mean with this story about myself is sometimes you just need to take ownership of your life, discuss the matter with the people you have around you (my partner in my situation) and then act accordingly.

Being comfortable is not something which will allow you to access the opportunities and benefits that you deserve. If it means you need to pull your managers into a room and discuss the potential of a raise because you’ve done a lot of good work over a long period then you need to do it.

If it means looking for a new job because your current one is not giving you what you need, then do it. If it means you need to pick up a side hustle or start building your portfolio to create another opportunity for yourself then do it. If it means going out to pitch for more work at a higher rate then you absolutely need to do it.

Network, Network, Network

I really encourage you to network as much as possible. Via social media and in the outside world you need to make an effort to go out and meet people. I’ve received opportunities from people I’ve met years ago, just by having them in my network. As life happens, you may have mutual business interests down the line which will allow you to work together or they are able to get you into the door for a deal that is worth your while. The goal is to always be willing to meet new people because you never know how they can help you in the future.

A lot of the people you meet along the way can give you advice on progressing or getting a start in a field you’re interested in, they can introduce you to people and they can just motivate and inspire you to go for more in your life and career. Sometimes, seeing someone else who is working towards going for what they believe they are worth can make you push on for more, especially if they give you vital information that can help you out in various areas. You might be that person for them and you can help them out on your journey.

Ultimately the more positive type of people you meet and associate yourself with (especially relating to where you are in your career or trying to get to), the better in terms of accessing ideas, information, encouragement and even opportunities that you might not have been able to get otherwise.

Pitch To The Places You Want To Go To

As I’ve touched on above, pitching to the places you want to go to is an important part of going for what you believe you are worth. Ultimately if you don’t ask then how can you get?

This is why I talk about building your portfolio because as you aim to establish yourself, you will be doing a lot of pitching to people for opportunities you feel are worthwhile for. What you should focus on during these pitches is how the service you provide can help them in a way that benefits them as all in all, that’s what it’s all about.

If one doesn’t see much benefit in having you around in terms of their bottom line, then why should they give you anywhere near what you believe you are worth?

This is why many are underpaid in certain jobs because their workplace doesn’t see their value as something which is overly important to their bottom line and thus they are replaceable. If you can show that you are not easily replaceable and someone that can contribute to said party in terms of money, clients, engagement, followers, business opportunities, views etc then it will be easier to command what you are asking for in return.

Be Intentional About Your Progression

Above all, you need to know that you want to progress in your career then you need to be serious and intentional about it. I use the word ‘intentional’ a lot in this post because it’s easy for a lot of us to say that we want something in our lives but let’s be honest, how many of us actually follow through with it until the end? That is something I’ve had major problems with in my life personally.

Going for what we are worth is something that we should definitely aim to follow through with, because why shouldn’t we?

You have to want it for yourself or it’s not going to work. You are not going to get that promotion or that contract or deal if you don’t believe you are worth it and if you don’t put the work in to show that you deserve it. So make it happen, I believe in you.

I hope this post encourages you to start putting the work in to get to where you want to get to. I trust that I’ll see you at the top.

Let me know how it goes for you.