How to get paid the number that you want

What do you want to be paid?

Put a figure down on paper. Go ahead.

Starting with 'the end in mind',  as Stephen Covey suggested in his bestselling book, is useful even when it comes to money goals.

Here's an example:

So let's say that you are a public speaker; somebody that gets paid to share their wisdom on stage to a seated audience.

The current fee that you charge is $1500 per keynote presentation. It's the rate that you are comfortable with, it's what you believe you are worth.

But you really want to charge $7500 per booking. $7500 is actually your number.

In your mind, however, there is a big gap between $1500 and $7500 - it's a long journey to bridge that big divide.

There is however a far better way to get there.

The alternate way to think about this goal is this:

Rather than thinking that $7500 is what you are needing to work towards over a period of time; imagine instead that you are already charging $7500.

$7500 is your current figure - it's yours. Take it.

See yourself delivering that $7500 presentation. See the faces of the audience absorbing the huge amounts of value that you are giving to them. Feel the appreciation and gratitude from people as your message opens up a new world of possibility in their minds. Recognise that what you have to share is perfectly suited to the needs of the people that you are offering it to.

Can you see and feel it?

Right, now the task is to simply work backward from there to construct a new high-value message that delivers this kind of experience that people will happily pay $7500 for.

The goal is already yours, what's needed are simply the reasons as to why you are able to charge your number; the reasons for the right people to believe that your number is worth it?

This simple exercise [a recognised futures studies tool called Backcasting] is a mental practice aimed at shifting the orientation of your mindset from one where you see your worth as something that is given to you by others; to one where your future is something over which you have agency over. A future that can be consciously designed according to how you want it to be.

Your future is yours to design and create. Try it.