Dierdre is an office superstar.

She accomplishes the work of three people in half the time, never misses a deadline, and has her clients eating out of her hand.

So her boss rewards her with way more responsibility and a teeny bit more pay…

…which Deirdre accepts because she thinks she has to.

At first, Deirdre feels honoured to be “rewarded” with more responsibility. She figures once she’s proven herself in this new role, she’ll have earned the right to negotiate for more money.

Within a few short weeks, she has completely mastered her new responsibilities. But rather than drawing the fierce woman’s conclusion that, um, she is an AMAZING ROCKSTAR, Deirdre wonders if maybe she simply wasn’t working at full capacity before.

And if she wasn’t working at full capacity before, can she truly justify asking for a raise now?

Meanwhile, Deirdre is working longer hours and has less time for her family and herself. And that pride she felt at being “rewarded” with more responsibility is quickly transforming into resentment.

Does any part of this story sound familiar?

If it does, chances are high you aren’t owning your worth.

When women don’t own their worth, a soul-destroying thing starts to happen: we work more and earn less.

We work more because we think we have to prove our value, and we earn less because we feel we aren’t entitled to ask for more money.

Research suggests that when it comes to money and time, women don’t typically negotiate. For this reason, it’s not uncommon for my clients to ask that I help them become better negotiators.

The irony is that, like Dierdre, so many of these women are already expert negotiators…with themselves.

Negotiating with yourself looks like this:

You convince yourself that they need to prove yourself in a new role before you can ask for money.

You persuade yourself that efforts are always noticed and rewarded.

You tell yourself that you need to do/be/achieve more, and that in this moment, you are lacking something (experience, skills, know-how etc.)

If you don’t appreciate your value and own your worth, negotiation skills won’t help you.

Learning, growing and increasing levels of mastery are an important part of our evolution as strong, ambitious women. But what we are today is enough.

The first rule of negotiation for fierce women is this:  You are 100% enough, just as you are.

The second rule is to never, ever negotiate with yourself.

Sit with those rules, absorb them into the depth of who you are.

When a woman owns her value completely, the world has no choice but to accept. No fancy negotiation skills needed.