Hello, hello, creative humans. Today I am writing to you from Manhattan Beach in Los Angelos. I’ve been awake since 12:30 am Pacific Time, and it’s currently 5:00 pm in the evening. I’m feeling beat, disheveled, and also content. Today I signed the papers for our new home in Ventura, CA, and while we’re still waiting for a few things before closing, I feel happy knowing good things are coming, and they are here. I would never have pictured myself living in California, but after a year of searching for the perfect place to land, the doors have opened, and this feels like a manifestation I’ve been building up to for many years. 

As I take a moment to pause and notice my inner and outer worlds, I encourage you to do the same. Notice the colors within your world, the way the objects around you are placed, where the light hits, and where shadows fall. Notice the textures of what is holding you and what is around you. Notice how your body feels in your chair today, how your heart feels, and if there are any tender or tense spaces in your being. Not judging what you see and are experiencing, simply noticing it. Allowing it. Honor it with your brief attention and presence. This is a practice of freedom that you can utilize at any time. A practice to attune to your space and come home to your power.

Today, I am tackling a Dominant Dogma submitted via a listener. With this in mind, I want to remind you that you can send me the Dominant Dogma in your world, and I would LOVE to chat about it on the pod! Email me at megan@megscolleen.com or shoot me a DM on instagram: @megscolleen 

Our Dominant Dogma this week is the internal narrative that says, “I’m not smart enough to raise my prices.”

While a listener submitted this Dominant Dogma, I FEEL this to my core! This inner narrative has caused me to check myself time and time again as I feel not enough and thus am drawn to new courses, certifications, and trainings. But when is enough enough? And with the thousands upon thousands of dollars I have already invested in my education..shouldn’t I get paid well for that skillset and offers? When will I feel enough to raise my prices and feel confident in my prices?

As I sat with these questions and others that came up for me around this Dominant Dogma, it led me to two key lessons that can uproot this Dominant Dogma in your life FOREVER: Knowing when you ACTUALLY NEED more education and knowing how to price your work with integrity. When you know these two lessons inside and out, you can uproot the unconscious narratives and the conscious inner dialogues that are keeping you from confidently pricing and selling your products, services, and knowledge.

How To Know When You ACTUALLY NEED More Education

In the years of working with my clients and experiencing this myself, I have found creatives, healers, practitioners, and passionate humans tend to hold learning and education as a key part of living your message and embodying your own work. Where this gets sticky is when this education shifts from a place of curiosity and expansion to a place of earning and hustling for your worth. 

Not earning your place as a professional in your field. Earning your place in your unique professional field can be important, and you do have to build trust with your people over time. 

What I’m referencing is this inner shift where you feel you have to prove you are worthy of existing, worthy of getting paid, and worthy of running a business. A shift from internal stability and belief to external fear of what others think about you, your work, and your pricing.

Now at some level, everyone experiences this from time to time. That’s part of being human! However, if this is your unconscious default mode, it may feel like you’re hitting your head against a wall trying over and over to reach your goals, grow your business, and find fulfillment in your work and/or purpose.

When this mindset because a default mode and a pattern in your life it can manifest as:

• Offering your time, your content, products and services for free
• Feeling like you are helping people so it’s somehow wrong to charge for what you do
• Feeling like you’re taking advantage of them, ripping them off
• Being scared you can’t deliver on what you’re selling
• Pricing that does not support a sustainable and regenerative business
• Pricing that does not support your regeneration and thriving
• Lack of confidence when you share your work, products, or services
• Lack of confidence when you share your pricing
• Comparing your pricing to your colleagues either thinking “How could I charge as much as them?” or “They could go with this other cheaper person and be just as happy…”
• Finding your posture shift to a protective or small stance when you speak about your work or pricing.

I want to pause for a moment on that last bullet point because it can be one of the most unconscious aspects of this Dominant Dogma.

How to notice this Dominant Dogma in your posture and presentation: 

Finding your posture shift to a protective or small stance when you speak about your work or pricing.

For neurotypical humans this can look and feel like:

• Hunched shoulders
• Eyes turned downward or general lack of eye contact
• Shifting your posture or fidgeting
• A quieter or softer voice often more within the realm of what is called your “head voice” 
• Sharing your pricing and your work in a questioning tone instead of stating the price matter of factly. Inflection goes up at end and gets quieter
• A more activated inner landscape (notice this by asking: has my inner dialogue ramped up? Are the stories in my mind creating a web that may or may not be true? Am I feeling afraid or especially concerned about what others are thinking about me?

It’s important to note: Please do not judge or use these traits to gauge others and their confidence in their work. Neurodivergent folks may participate in traits like these naturally as part of their being, even if they are very confident in their work. If you are trying to notice someone else’s confidence and skill in their work focus moreso on their essence, the energy behind what they are saying, your resonance to that. Which leads us to how this Dominant Dogma can look and feel like for neurodivegent humans.

For neurodivergent humans this can look and feel like:

•  Hunched shoulders
• A quieter or softer voice often more within the realm of what is called your “head voice” 
• Sharing your pricing and your work in a questioning tone instead of stating the price matter of factly. Inflection goes up at end and gets quieter
• More activation in your body movements
• A more protective stance (arms crossed, feet crossed, sitting on the edge of your seat)
• A sensation of losing control, perhaps struggling to maintain homeostasis within your body
• Tension in your shoulders, jaw, and feet
• A more activated inner landscape (notice this by asking: has my inner dialogue ramped up? Are the stories in my mind creating a web that may or may not be true? Am I feeling afraid or especially concerned about what others are thinking about me?
• A sensation of hyper-vigilance and feeling the need to mask to the nth degree

This is not an exhaustive list of “symptoms” so to speak, however they are physical manifestations of this unconcious narrative “I’m not smart enough to raise my prices.” Which leads us into the practical portion of this first topic: How to know when you ACTUALLY NEED more education, or if you are simply functioning from an old unconscious Dominant Dogma.

To take this self awareness and alchemize it to uproot this Dominant Dogma, I want to offer you a set of journal prompts. 

First, I encourage you to cultivate a safe and supportive environment for yourself so you can evaluate why your unique symptoms are present. Then take time to make your way through each of these journal prompts:

1. Does my work, product, or service require education? Is it generally accepted in my field that you need a specific degree, certification, or life experience? 
2. If no, then love, you can generally assume you do not need more education. You are already worthy of thriving, you have always been worthy, and your response to this prompt shares that your work is also worthy of compensaion! I encourage you to move on to the next section of the pod to learn how to price your work with integrity, and give yourself permission to bask in the awareness: your work is worthy of compensation. 
3. If yes, do I have that education or experience? 
4. If you do NOT have the education that is required or needed for your field, please know that you are already worthy of thriving, you have always been worthy, and your work simply needs you to say YES to it. Give it time to grow, and continue your education so that you can set up your business in a way that supports you. 
5. If you DO have the education that is required or needed for your field, please know that you are already worthy of thriving, you have always been worthy, and your response to this prompt shares that your work is also worthy of compensaion! I encourage you to move on to the next section of the pod to learn how to price your work with integrity, and give yourself permission to bask in the awareness: your work is worthy of compensation. 

How To Price Your Work With Integrity

This second topic of the podcast is largely pulled from my FREE Integral Sales & Marketing Masterclass that you can access at megscolleen.com/shop. If you want to dive deeper and access more around this topic, plus a FREE content marketing planner, I highly recommend popping onto my site and downloading that as your next step on this journey. 

As I dive into this second topic I’m going to assume you listened to the first part of this pod and have enough education and experience to market and sell your work. However, even with that HEAD KNOWLEDGE that you know enough, you’re still feeling lack of confidence which is causing you to overgive, undercharge, and not grow your business in the sustainable and regenerative way you’re craving for. 

Often this Dominant Dogma takes root internally because it’s how Dominant culture has taught you to live. To extract from self, others and the planet, to the detriment of all. You’ve been taught that is the only way to survive, but as the loving, giving, and caring human you are you don’t want that life.

Let’s carve a new way forward. 

A path where you:

• Honor your body and their needs
• Say no when you’re at capacity
• Charge enough to cover your needs, expenses, and regeneration
• Notice if you actually want to scale, or if that’s a Dominant Dogma in of itself that you want to hand back
• Notice if you actually want to charge more, or if that’s a Dominant Dogma in of itself that you want to hand back
• Notice if you actually want to hire a team, or if that’s a Dominant Dogma in of itself that you want to hand back

There is enough to go around, let’s create a collaborative and regenerative environment for all.

1. Craft Aligned Offers
   The first step to price your work with integrity is Crafting Aligned Offers. So much of pricing your work, is having offers of full of integrity. Offers that light you up and that align with your purpose, skills, and giftings in the world.
   
   Notice for yourself: 
   1. What skills, education, and giftings do I have that give me the ability to offer this product or service?
   2. Do my offerings, services, and products feel aligned?
   3. What parts of them turn me on?
   4. What parts of them turn me off?
      
2. Get Clear On The Real Cost
   Get SO clear on how much your products and services cost so that you can base your pricing off of these numbers creating an energetic YES from you because you know WHY your pricing is the way it is. Stop crafting your pricing on arbitrary numbers. I’m going to say it again: STOP BASING YOUR PRICING ON ARBITRARY NUMBERS. When you do this, of COURSE you will feel a lack of confidence when you try to increase or initially establish your pricing. There is no WHY behind this change.
   
   So get CLEAR on your costs.
   
   Get really clear on how much it costs to offer your products and services and craft an estimate of your unique hourly rate based on your education and experience.
   
   You don’t necessarily need to disclose this hourly rate. This is simply a tool to offer you a tangible and realistic number to mirror your many hours of experience, education, and the money you’ve spent to offer your products or services.
   
   This not only supports deep alignment for you so you can speak about your offers confidently, but then if you do desire to disclose why your offers are what they are this can actually be a trust building part of your engagement so your people.
   
   To ensure you feel deeply aligned with the pricing you have on all of your products and services ask yourself:
   1. How much does it cost to offer the product or service? 
   2. Are you saving for taxes? 
   3. Do you need to set aside money to hire help? 
   4. How much are you getting paid and is this enough to regenerate your energy for a supportive and reciprocal exchange?
   5. Do you have a margin for profit and/or savings?
      
      Get SO clear on your deliverables, pricing and Terms & Conditions for each of your products and offerings. Ensure you are sharing these details in an accessible way for your people.
      
      So often when I engage with clients, if they are doing ALL the right things from a strategic and practical standpoint, but they are still struggling with pricing and making sales, it lies within these questions.
      
      If something in here feels misaligned they don’t feel confident in their numbers because they know, deep in their core, at an unconscious energetic level, that their pricing is 1) not covering their costs, 2) not getting them paid enough to support their regeneration.
      
      If you are listening to this episode because of pricing struggles: these questions are your GOLDEN TICKET. Take them, spend time with them. And get clear on your WHY for your numbers.
      
      

And that is what I want to leave you with today! Gosh, I fit in a LOT on this episode, and if anything felt unclear I highly recommend relistening and access the transcript on my website. Additionally, if you want support on your personal or Business Freedom Journey I would love to invite you into a one-on-one coaching series.

If deep in your spirit you want to feel empowered, share your creativity, live with freedom, and finally feel joyful again, then you’re in the right place! My goal is to help you integrate the parts of you feeling afraid and unsupported, hand back the outdated cultural stories, and guide you to rise as the deeply, wildly, and holistically free human you already are. Your next step is to Book a FREE Clarity Call with me at megscolleen.com and I hope to see you on a call soon!

Freedom is yours, 

Megan

This is your time to embody the freedom you crave.

Your next step: Book a FREE Clarity Call with me at megscolleen.com! I hope to see you on a call soon!

Freedom is yours, 

Megan