Monday Hustle: Knowing Your Worth At Work And The Power Of Affirmations

If you've not yet had the pleasure of reading You Are a Badass by the life coach Jen Sincero, please borrow/buy it now because you're missing a treat. I was first introduced to the wisdom of Jen last October when I was sat at work one day and was going through what I can only believe to be my quarter-life crisis. I was feeling it particularly hard that day, the weight of career goals and that annoying niggle called fear sat heavy on my shoulders, and I'd convinced myself that I was an imposter (everyone in my office has felt imposter syndrome at some point, including the big boss, so that serves some relief for me!). Despite working hard to get the job role I'm in now, and even more so whilst in my role, something switched in me and I needed to call upon my trusty tribe of women to help clear my headspace. That day, Jen’s book became a member of the tribe too.

It's exactly the pep talk you need. She's witty, she's brutally honest, she's the swearing best friend you need to tell it like it is. You'll need an open mind to read it though, because it introduces a new spiritual side of you that you may not have even known you had or had been interested in discovering before. Jen is not asking you to join a hippie cult, before your mind goes racing. It's simply, in laymen’s terms, the practice of positive thinking and affirmations to believe what you are and who you are, and build yourself up to what and who you want to be. And it's not exclusive to just self-love as some have previously presumed.

Even if you don't want to pursue the spiritual side of ‘Law of Attraction’, the practice that teaches positive thinking and affirmations, saying affirmations to yourself is not a bad idea. Think about it: You're sitting at work, wondering if you've made the right career choice and how this leads onto your future goals. Or you'd like a pay rise. Or you doubt whether you're qualified or experienced enough to go for that promotion. As your inner negative monologue starts, you convince yourself that you don’t deserve those things or that the timing isn’t right. Instead, you should acknowledge that feeling and then spin it the hell around. Tell yourself that if you're sitting there with everyone else, you're worthy of the same. You're great at your job and deserve the challenges that the promotion will bring. You love your job and are worthy of more money for doing great work. See the pattern? Visualisation is really powerful in order to see where you want yourself to be in your job, see the goals you can achieve and imagine all the tiny details that you would like to come to you.

There's a plethora of methods for how you want to do your affirmations. You can customise it to how you would like to speak to yourself; you know yourself better than anyone and only you can have the conversation with your inner badass hiding in the shadows. Your conversations may even inspire the action needed for you to be able to reach the goal — turns out, our inner selves love problem-solving. Who knew?

Here are my top five affirmations to say to myself at night, or even sometimes over my morning coffee:

·      I am great at my job.

·      My goals for my career align perfectly with my values.

·      I am deserving of a salary that matches my great skills.

·      I love the work that I do because it helps [insert customer type or clients here].

·      I am in control of my decisions for work and life.

You are not an imposter. You are not unworthy of the jobs you have had and sit in now. You are a badass like Jen Sincero.