“I wanted to be X”… long story. I listened for several minutes and then asked, “What did you do instead”.. I labored, he quietly mumbled. My advice would not have mattered. Long ago he had accepted a life without his dream. – Unknown
When we are young we create dreams of achieving X. We nurture the dream and believe in our hearts that we will accomplish it. Somewhere along the way most people just give up on their dream and start following an alternative. In other words they settle.
There could be a million reasons for people settling. I believe that people might fail at some things and they often extrapolate those little failures into believing that they will fail at their big dream. So in order not to fail in their dream, they just replace the challenging and worthwhile goal with an easily achievable and non-challenging goal.
Imagine a negotiation in which two parties are trying to agree on a price for an item. Lets call the item BLUE. I feel that BLUE is worth $100 but you feel that the true value is $50. I state my desire for $100 and you laugh in my face and explain that 50 dollars is a better estimate of the BLUE worth. Suppose we go back and forth and I eventually settle for $56. It is closer to your prediction so I feel beaten. My belief is crushed. I no longer feel that my future estimates are as good as yours. No one forced me to take your estimate but I settled.
This scenario is very typical of salary negotiations. The salary is a “settlement” with which both sides agree to follow. But once you settle for working for X it is very difficult to demand a much higher Y. The employer knows you settled and they are expecting you to settle in the future.
Today’s question is:
“How do you keep negotiating without settling for a lower value?”
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