If you’re anything like me, you’re not at your most impressive when you look in the mirror each morning.
This is all fine and normal, so long as you don’t mix “morning you” with “professional you”.
And yes, it matters a great deal that you create a quite separate professional persona.
In a fair world, every freelancer would be paid what they actually deserve. But, of course, it isn’t a fair world. So you have to do something to make sure you get paid at least what you truly deserve, and preferably more.
As an example, I spoke with two different coaching clients a few weeks ago, both of whom had just picked up projects to create a monthly e-newsletter for a client. One was charging $200 per issue, the other was charging $2,000.
Was the second guy ten times better than the first? Not at all.
The difference was that the second freelancer genuinely felt his work was worth $2,000. So that’s what he estimated, and that’s what he got.
The value of your work has less than you think to do with its real value, and more to do with its perceived value. That perception resides both in your own mind and in your client’s mind.