Stop Letting Your Job Decide What You’re Worth.

Something important I’ve learned over the past couple of years, has to do with outsourcing your value. 

I had an uncomfortable realisation, about 18 months ago, that I had built a large part of my sense of worth on how I was treated at work. 

When things were going well, I felt secure, I felt happy, and I had a sense of fulfilment. I felt valued, I felt calm. When decisions went in my favour, I also interpreted that as evidence of who I was. 

I had unfortunately tied, not only my value, but also a large part of my identity, into my job. 

So when things didn’t go well, I felt very uncomfortable, and somewhat lost…

I say this as someone who’s career was a vocation. A passion. A purpose. You matter unto you don’t.

A job is a transaction.

You are exchanging time and skill for money. That’s it. That’s the boundary. That’s where the transaction ends. 

If you start deriving your worth from how that transaction unfolds, you’ve crossed a line.

Erich Fromm wrote about this in Escape from Freedom - that modern people often surrender autonomy in exchange for security. We attach ourselves to institutions, roles and systems, because they feel stable. In return, we hand over a portion of our independence.

I wouldn’t have described it to you like that at the time. But looking back, that’s precisely what I’d done.

I had let a structure decide how I felt about myself.

When I eventually realised I wasn’t as valued as I thought I was, it was like a lightbulb had flickered on. If the role could change, if the treatment could change, if the approval wasn’t guaranteed, then maybe none of that had ever been the source of my value in the first place.

That was quite a day.

Viktor Frankl talks about the “last of the human freedoms”, which is, the ability to choose your stance in any given set of circumstances.

But here’s the rub - you can’t choose your stance if your identity is fused with the circumstance.

If the job is the proof of your worth, you’re not actually choosing your stance, you're simply defending your stability.

Agency comes from the belief that you can act and influence outcomes. When your sense of self is tied to structures you don’t control, perceived agency drops. You become reactive without meaning to.

That’s what outsourcing value does. It makes you so much smaller than you are.

Ironically, the moment I felt least valued externally was the moment my internal value began to grow and grow.

Because I had to decide;

If this isn’t where my worth comes from, then where does it live?

It doesn’t live in a title.

It doesn’t live in how I’m spoken to.

It doesn’t live in whether I’m picked, renewed, promoted or applauded.

Now, those things are real. They do matter. But they are outcomes of agreements.

They are not verdicts on your existence.

So once I saw it for what it was, a transaction, I almost immediately stopped treating it like a verdict.

That didn’t mean I stopped caring, far from it. It just meant I wasn’t measuring myself against it anymore. Which gave me unbounded choice (what a privilege!). 

I could stay if it made sense to. I could leave if it didn’t.

And THAT, my friend, is autonomy. 

Protocol;

Let's try something…

Pick an area of your life; your work, maybe a relationship, and ask yourself;

Is this a transaction, or have I turned it into a verdict?

Then ask yourself a harder question;

If this disappeared tomorrow, what would actually go and what would still be mine? Would my value change? Would my identity leave me? 

You don’t need to burn anything down.

Just notice where you’ve outsourced the final say on your worth.

Agency starts when you bring that back in-house.

Take Care

- James