You Don't Have to Negotiate Yourself
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been writing about the relationship between performance and worth.
First, I asked when doing well became evidence that we were worthy. Then I explored the bargains we make with ourselves when we discover which versions of us earn approval, belonging and recognition.
Be capable, and you'll matter.
Be useful, and you'll be needed.
Be exceptional, and you'll be noticed.
Be easy, and you'll belong.
But once we can see the bargain, another question becomes possible:
What would happen if we stopped negotiating?
The Parts of Us We Put on the Table
Negotiation usually involves an exchange. I'll give you this if you give me that.
And I think many of us learn to negotiate ourselves in remarkably similar ways.
I'll give you competence if you give me credibility. I'll give you usefulness if you give me belonging. I'll give you strength if you give me respect. I'll give you achievement if you give me evidence that I matter.
The trouble isn't that we're competent, useful, strong or ambitious. Those may be wonderful qualities.
The trouble is believing we need to keep producing them to maintain our value.
Because eventually, the negotiation becomes exhausting.
What If Nothing Had to Be Earned?
I want to be careful here because I'm not suggesting that nothing in life needs to be earned.
Trust needs to be earned. Expertise needs to be developed. Opportunities sometimes need to be competed for. Relationships require reciprocity. Leadership requires accountability.
Your worth is different.
You arrived with that.
And if that's true, we don't have to become less ambitious or stop caring about doing excellent work. We simply stop asking those things to perform a job they were never capable of doing.
Achievement can tell me I achieved something.
It cannot tell me whether I deserve to exist.
Feedback can tell me something about my performance.
It cannot measure my humanity.
Someone can decide I'm not right for an opportunity.
They do not get to decide my value.
That's a very different way of moving through the world.
Becoming Without Rejecting Who You Are
For a long time, personal development has been framed around becoming better.
Better leaders. Better communicators. Better performers. Better versions of ourselves.
I believe deeply in development. I've spent much of my career teaching it.
But I no longer believe growth has to begin with the assumption that the person standing here today is somehow insufficient.
We can learn without rejecting ourselves.
We can change without shaming who we used to be.
We can receive feedback without putting our identity on trial.
We can become without making our current humanity the problem we're trying to solve.
That's the shift I'm interested in.
The Feisty Human
It's also why I wrote The Feisty Human.
The title isn't about becoming louder, tougher or more defiant. And it certainly isn't about becoming someone who refuses feedback or accountability.
For me, becoming a Feisty Human is about learning to stand in your own humanity without constantly negotiating pieces of it away.
It's about knowing the difference between who you are and how you're performing.
It's about holding yourself accountable without making shame the price of admission.
It's about continuing to grow while refusing the idea that growth is what will finally make you worthy.
And it's about extending that same humanity to other people.
Because when we stop treating worth as something people have to earn, we don't only change our relationship with ourselves.
We change how we lead.
You don't have to stop becoming.
You just don't have to negotiate your worth along the way.
The Feisty Human launches next Friday, October 23.
And I'm very ready to share it with you.
Forward, with purpose.
— Amber
Your performance can be evaluated. Your worth cannot.
If this reflection stayed with you, explore The Feisty Human: Recipes for Becoming Someone You Don’t Have to Negotiate.
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