Episode 225: Recognizing Your Self Worth When Things Feel “Too Hard” With Tiffany Houser

By Sarah Walton | April 23, 2024

Click here to watch the video version of this podcast episode

Only you can compromise your self-worth. No one else can. This isn’t about your compensation or competence; we're talking about your intrinsic belief in yourself that you are worthy and valuable as a human being.

Self-worth is often used incorrectly in the entrepreneurial world; we say things like “charge what you're worth.” (I’ve done it, too!) But you are a human being. Your worth is invaluable.

We can be worthy of applying for jobs. We can be worthy of asking for raises. we can be worthy of increasing our rates or even launching that business we've been dreaming of. We are worthy of growing the business we already have.

As an executive and leadership coach, and entrepreneur, Tiffany Houser knows firsthand about the rollercoaster ride of self-worth. As the founder of EVOLVE, Tiffany coaches senior leaders who are ready to experience powerful breakthroughs around their self-worth, authentic leadership style, vision, and purpose.

Tiffany uncovers the hidden struggles compromising their self-worth, often lurking in their blind spots, which lead almost every leader to feeling like an imposter.

Journey to executive coaching about self-worth

Tiffany used to be a SoulCycle instructor where she fielded questions and made connections with those in her class. She started off as a health coach, but by the time she reached her third client, everything was leading back to the professional journey. It reminded Tiffany of how she started.

“I was in a great experience, yet I wanted more,” she says. “Things weren't moving as big or as grand or as fast as I wanted it.” In working with her clients and their teams, the focus would be on change.

“What gets a lot of us, if not all of us through change, is our worth and our value to know what has us resist change and what has us embrace change,” Tiffany says. “But then when we really looked at the behavior, the habits and all of the research that was going into this, we started to see it was our self-worth. It was how we valued our self, what we thought about ourself, how we treated ourselves.”

She found when people feel those imposter syndrome feelings, or they doubt themselves, they can transform it by working on their belief system and mindset. And that goes back to how they view themselves – their worth and value.

Imposter thoughts and self-doubt

One thing Tiffany says is rarely talked about in the workplace is compassion. It is an advantage to understand your own experience with self-worth. Those feelings of being an imposter, insecure, self-doubt or fear are nuanced for the individual.

Do you experience self-worth? Is it in your consciousness, or do you keep shoving it in, suppressing it down so that you don't have to deal with it? The first piece of identifying your self-worth is understanding where the stories and interpretations came from.

Was it your parents? Was it a coach? Was it a teacher that told you to be quiet, sit down, don't speak before your elders? These things start to impact our worthiness and our value.

“When we are told these stories of ‘no, too much, not enough,’ you build up what we call either a treasure chest, which is the treasure is not that great, or a bank account of coal,” says Tiffany. “All of a sudden that turns into your version of gold.”

That might look like I'm not going to speak up in this meeting because it's not my meeting. Even though I have an idea, I have something to contribute. It's her meeting, so I'm going to let her run the meeting.

The ego side of it, which is the side that usually doesn't work for a lot of us, tells us to be quiet. Wait your turn. Don't speak up. Listen. Which in any other context are all wonderful things. But when you are working in an organization, you're there to contribute; you are compensated to contribute.

“We are there to share our service, our product with the world, and we stifle ourselves because we don't think it's good enough, quality enough,” says Tiffany.

Your confidence is birthed from your self-worth. The really great part about self-worth and trust is they are choices, says Tiffany. They're not things you need to work on or develop or acquire. You have them. Just like confidence, just like anger, just like jealous that you have all of those. You have access to all of them.

Watch: How to Increase Confidence

Return on investment of self-worth

The ROI is really tied into how people are showing up.

One of the big pieces her team looks at first is language and how we are speaking, writing, reading, and even listening. These words are what are poking holes and having us compromise our own self-worth.

What Tiffany tends to hear is, “Oh, I've been treated this way, or I have been passed over for this, and no one has hired me for that, or I can't get my team to do XYZ.” That has nothing to do with your self-worth, your value or your impact, your contribution. You're either compromising your self-worth or you're grounded in your self-worth – there is no positive or negative. Tiffany helps to support people with neutralizing their language and their words.

The number one word is “hard”. It’s too hard. Hard is a throwaway word. Your subconscious is using that without even really being descriptive about what is going on. The way Tiffany support leaders or teams is to have them get specific. What exactly is hard? Tell me more.

Think about all the teams and all the entrepreneurs that have thrown the baby out with the bathwater because of hard. They walk away from investments. They walk away from people. They walk away from clients. They walk away from opportunities. Because one aspect of that was not easy. Or maybe you just didn't have all the context around what that was.

Your subconscious, or what we call your ego label, it is hard to keep you comfortable and then you most likely abandoned it or sabotaged it, or you kept living in the hard – it’s not progressing as fast or as smooth as it could, or it's not producing the results that it could. You've labeled it as hard, identified it as hard. So that's all it's ever going to be.

You haven't debriefed it. You haven't taken a look at it to see what's working or what's not working now or yet. And then, what's possible now? Even if it didn't work there was a lesson in there for you.

This is a lifelong journey of transformation, leadership, and knowing your worth and value because the biggest things that evoke and provoke your imposter feelings and your insecurities are change and new. I don't know whose life does not consist of something changing or something new showing up.

The world is constantly evolving around us, and that's where that compassion piece comes back into play. So, rather than beating yourself up, you get compassionate. And when you are compassionate with yourself and other people, that births curiosity rather than judgment or pressure.