KNOW YOUR WORTH WRITTEN BY MICHELLE POTTER PRINCIPLE - FAITH Where can I feel validated, support my growth and help contribute to the family income? I am not sure how I ever thought I could become abundantly successful in a career where I have no tertiary qualifications, no mentor and no accounting software! I live and breathe to create. I love to help others and I know that art has been the catalyst for my own healing, so why not combine my passion for healing and art into a business? The gruelling task of updating my CV seems to be an annual event. After years of developing my skills I felt it was time to analyse where I could expand my network and re-examine my reluctance in going back to working for someone else. My first stop was an employment app and I typed ‘creative arts’ in search the category. A few positions came up and I started to view the job descriptions: Gallery Curator, Art Teacher, Arts Administrators, Government opportunities, all of which required qualifications I didn’t have. I decided to downgrade my search to part time. If I couldn’t find something in my field of experience, then I needed to make room for it in my life. The more I searched the more my self-worth was getting hammered and the realities of my situation started to come into the light. In the last 15 years of raising children, a life changing cancer diagnosis and years of building up an art business from home I have somehow stepped out of the business sector and have been left with two options – further education or group interviews with people younger than me fighting for retail positions for which I felt I am both over qualified and too old for. While I was wrapped up in my little cocoon evolving myself with pastel pencils and acrylic paints the world seems to have passed me by. Back when I received a weekly pay packet the average petrol price in Australia was 85c a litre. I had finished work to go on maternity leave and somehow my brain froze in 2003. ‘Lightbulb moment’, no wonder I undercharge. This exercise was important because I realised that living in lack hasn’t been due to my ability to access the abundance, it has been my inability to charge appropriately in the present. So, I asked myself the question again ‘Where can I feel validated, support my growth and help contribute the family income?’ and the answer came quickly ‘Exactly where I am, doing exactly what I’m doing but charging my worth’. When you live and breathe your purpose one of the lessons, I am learning is to know my worth. I cannot imagine working in an environment where my creative centre is not fully active. What was initially just an employment search turned out to be a valuable lesson about myself. By listening and trusting Spirit I know that the Universe has my back and I am exactly where I need to be. Michelle Potter www.michellepotter.com.au
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Watch - Know Your Worth and then Ask For It - with Casey Brown