Everybody likes a fine even crumb when making bread. So, we tirelessly knead the bread dough to get a well-developed gluten. Likewise, our lives like a bread dough requires constant kneading to improve its worth. However, kneading the wrong ingredients is highly unlikely to produce any bread at all!
Years back on my way to open my first bank account with my mother, the 'bank lady' looked straight at me and asked , 'young lady,how much are you worth?'
As much as i found the title, 'young lady', ear-watering, disappointingly i was dumb-founded. After a while, I managed to give an economic answer. However, one's worth, even in economics, consists of more than the present tangible cash-in-hand. Thus, as i walked out of the bank, i kept pondering what is my worth and what will i be worth in 5 years?
Consistent self-assessment is proven to not only promote a positive energy and good health but also encourage innovation out of adversity.
About 10 years later, do i have all the answers?
No but, searching for an answer to this single question periodically has not only changed my perception of life but have also enabled me to make some discoveries that I hope helps you with your self-assessment.
This is because with life's seeming inconsistencies , this simple question (what is my worth) helps map out what is consistent for forging ahead.
Years back on my way to open my first bank account with my mother, the 'bank lady' looked straight at me and asked , 'young lady,how much are you worth?'
As much as i found the title, 'young lady', ear-watering, disappointingly i was dumb-founded. After a while, I managed to give an economic answer. However, one's worth, even in economics, consists of more than the present tangible cash-in-hand. Thus, as i walked out of the bank, i kept pondering what is my worth and what will i be worth in 5 years?
Consistent self-assessment is proven to not only promote a positive energy and good health but also encourage innovation out of adversity.
About 10 years later, do i have all the answers?
No but, searching for an answer to this single question periodically has not only changed my perception of life but have also enabled me to make some discoveries that I hope helps you with your self-assessment.
This is because with life's seeming inconsistencies , this simple question (what is my worth) helps map out what is consistent for forging ahead.
In my self-assessments, I discovered five key criteria needed to assess one's worth:
Criterion 1: Education worth
The slogan that, 'Education is the one thing that once acquired cannot be taken away from you' is everything but a myth. Education is one of the necessary weapon to survive aside it being a fundamental human right . The challenge is maximising the value of the highest education achieved when you are at a seemingly hopeless end. Every education has a value, you have to know how best to use it. In Ghana, a senior high school certificate can give you anything from a cleaning job to a sales girl. Not the highest paid person but definitely a start from nothing. So increasing your level of education is one way of increasing the future value of this self-worth. That is, the more education you have, the more versatile you may be to work across borders and barriers and in most cases the more fulfilling remuneration you attract. Education could be informal or formal. Time spent learning and money invested in a qualification is sure worth spending. If money seems to be a constraint, start from a casual job and invest gradually. Note that, the more you get educated, the more you will get to network with the right people and find better opportunities to get closer to your aspirations.
A word of caution is to be weary of friends and 'opportunities' that will inhibit your chance to advance your education worth. The time-frame i use to assess my education worth is every three years. Just enough time to have completed a significant portion of an education level as well as make a reasonable turn-around from any mistakes made. Mistakes are part of learning.
What is your education worth?
Criterion 2: Talent worth
Every single person is born with at least one exceptional ability which is why each person looks, sounds, thinks and acts in a unique way. Think about this, no science has figured a homogeneous way to fully describe a comprehensive homogeneous limitation of humans. Thus, your innate weaknesses, strengths and abilities are not only personal traits but also are opportunities to mark your territories. Your ability to manage and develop these traits and expand its impact will accelerate your self-worth.
Growing up, I loved singing. However, I doubted that I had any thing exceptional about my God-given voice. However, after periodic self-assessments I realised that the talent was not necessarily in my singing quality but the unique ability to touch hearts at the sound of my voice. Recognising this, i took a lot of unpaid opportunities to sing or speak at events to advocate for the support of inclusive development. Eventually, I use my voice everyday through music and speeches to not only sustain myself but support the causes that I am passionate about. Currently, I am exploring my non-verbal voice through writing and video.making. Yours could be prolific writing, talking, art, etc. Everybody has an innate gift. Something that you are exceptionally good at naturally which is further developed through practice (raw talent). That gift can be a money earner if you take every opportunity to figure out how to use it and gain from it. Exploring this innate talent may not only feed you but another hungry mouth.
One sure way to explore your talents is through volunteering at least 1-4 days a month to explore your abilities. Although volunteering is unpaid, it is a form of free practical talent education which you complete with a referee instead of a certificate. A certificate acknowledges that you have participated in a course but a recommendation gives a personal affirmation of your ability to use the skills gained in the course.
Caution: Do not be afraid to fail in practically exploring your ability in the eyes of a third-party because they are certain to give objective feedback which will help you improve. Knowing and believing that you have achieved and can achieve more gives one the potential to win. Believing that you will fail means that you already lost by default when there could have been a chance that you could win.
Criterion 3: Leadership worth
Like many other religious books, the Bible advocates that there is more blessing in giving than receiving. The more you use your experiences(failures and achievements) to encourage others, the more confident you become of who you are as a human being. Maslow calls this self actualization.
To explore my leadership potential, I spent time exploring opportunities to expand a company's product line to include a service that incorporated helping girls in a community get back to school. Currently, I volunteer to coordinate other volunteers to collect food surplus from supermarkets to make healthy meals for mental health users at Food Cycle. These experiences did not only expound my ability to lead a multi-cultural team but liaise with companies and household heads to deliver a service and product, respectively.
Start your own project to make life better for others by volunteering to lead or create a service or program in your community. This will not only help you learn to work with other people but will also help you to better understand your leadership potential.
Criterion 4: Network worth
King Solomon of the Bible or King Sulemana from the Quran are considered the wisest people on earth in Christianity and Islam. Aside their innate ability, another attribute that is common these men and similar wise men in other religions is their delight to interact with other cultures and understand different trades. Even in their extraordinary wisdom, these people acknowledged that wisdom is not limited to a single person, place or industry and that understanding the way of living from people, place and business will enhance the potency of their solutions. Since the world is heterogeneous and continuously varying in climate, development and so on, there is a higher probability that a nascent problem in one country may be an obsolete problem in another. Interacting and building relationships via internet or in-person with novel places, people and industry offers solution-models for 'current' challenges. Simply put, there is nothing new under the sun.
The people we interact with as well as the events/places we are privileged to visit or temporarily live in is a form of knowledge acquisition on its own. From those most developed places , you learn that through advanced technology almost anything is possible and through less developed places you learn to appreciate nature and the power of strong social ties. Time and money spent building strong relationships with amazing people and places is like a savings account, you never know when you need to make a withdrawal. Emphasis on amazing people and places.
''...It is the glory of kings to search out the mysteries of the world.''
Criterion 5 : Achievement worth
Challenge yourself to excel at something good, write your outcome down (positive and negative). Keep trying to get it right or keep evolving to make it better. Remember that if you were awesome at that , you can be awesome at anything. However, excellence can be a lonely journey on a very bumpy road but it does not have to be. It is more depressing to talk forever and do nothing .'Researchers who have been awarded for their amazing research live some years longer than those who have not'-Nobel week dialogue:the age to come. Your achievements help you to value your worth.
Caution: Know when to stop and when to continue and take one day at a time. Do not be afraid to be the first person to try something new. If you failed, then you will be the first discover one way that won't work.
Every person's worth is like an accounting book with credits and debits. The challenge is to identify what fits as a debit and what fits as a credit and how to make it at least break-even and gradually make profits.