The Myth of Charging What You’re Worth
It’s impossible
When I was a newly licensed psychotherapist, I often heard this phrase from other clinicians:
“Charge what you’re worth.”
Some healers have a hard time charging fees for their services. They really want to support their clients in their healing, and they have incredible gifts to offer. (I’m talking to you therapists, coaches, massage wizards, acupuncturists, etc.) I’ve been to some very gifted healers who felt so horrible charging any money that they offered their services for free. Not so good for them when they really couldn’t afford to pay their living expenses.
So this term charge what your worth is meant to be affirming, supportive, a way to encourage those of us in the healing profession to be proud of our services. To know that we can make a decent living doing what we love.
It’s a misguided phrase that is meant to instill self-confidence and self-worth.
Here’s the thing. Money issues, financial anxiety, and unresolved issues with money can influence what we charge our clients. I know many clinicians that have charged very low fees and then felt resentful for accepting those very low fees. I know clinicians that charge very high fees and then feel inadequate and undeserving of those high fees. This is no way to work.
I bought into this idea of charging what I’m worth for a few years as well. I made the mistake of equating how good of a psychotherapist I was with how high of a fee I could charge. As if somehow charging a high fee makes one highly skilled.
Truth — It doesn’t.
Equating money with inherent value is common in our society.
Have you learned that somewhere from someone? That charging a high fee equals skillful and valuable service?
We seem to believe that if a coach, therapist, doctor charges an extremely high fee, they must be good at what they do. This simply isn’t true as a blanket rule. I once sat in on a few therapy sessions with a psychologist who charged $350/hour, and soon realized I would never refer anyone to that person for therapy. And I also know very skilled clinicians that charge significantly less.
Look, I get it. Receiving large amounts of money can feel like a high if you’re not used to receiving it. I’m not saying that we should or shouldn’t charge high fees. I’m saying that equating our worth or even our skill, with what we can get people to pay us is egoic and not aligned for me. And paying a high fee because we think we’re getting a better service is more of the same. A high fee means nothing more than a high fee.
My worth (and yours!) is infinite and eternal.
There is no way to quantify our worth or box it up as a product.
Our true worth does not and cannot exist on the same plane as money. It transcends this physical world. From this perspective, saying “Charge what you’re worth” just doesn’t make any sense.
So then, how do we determine our fees?
My mentor, George Kao, has shared his way of looking at fees for service, which I resonate with. He uses the ideas of “enoughness” and “compassion for my client.” Instead of charging more and more just because I can get more and more, I consider the following questions:
- What fee allows me to have enough to do what I want to do?
- And what fee takes into consideration compassion for my client?
This requires separating my self-worth (which is infinite) from the social construct of money.
When I really sit with this, I move into a different place in consciousness. I actually feel better about my work, my fee, my purpose. I move into a place that feels more aligned with my values and less about making money more important than people.
