Undervaluing your professional worth is common, and it ties into your mental health. 🧠

In the world of career coaching, I dance with my clients’ mental health every single day.

I also personally identify as someone who has to proactively manage anxiety, depression, and/or other situations such as bereavement and family addiction.

So, I’m not throwing rocks in glass houses here.

There are 8 conditions I repeatedly see with job seekers who undervalue themselves.

1. Lack of Confidence, Clarity, and Certainty

2. Bipolar

3. Depression

4. Anger

5. Anxiety

6. Addiction/Co-Dependency Recovery

7. Learning and Processing (Dyslexia, Executive Functioning, Memory, etc.)

8. ADD/ADHD

There’s also a TON of situations that add to the snowball effect and often diminish self-worth even further.

1. “I’m a shell of myself”

2. Boss abuse (gaslighting, narcissism)

3. Bereavement

4. Burnout

5. The Great Reshuffle and ExPats (loss of country, community, being a trailing spouse)

6. Layoffs/Firing/Rescinding

7. Loss of Health

8. Divorce/Return to Work

9. Empty Nest

10. Long Term Unemployment

11. Post-Graduation

12. Forced Retirement

13. Sale of Business/Transition to Workforce

14. Residuals from The Great Resignation

What's the result of playing small or talking smack about yourself?

More of the same…staying stuck in your role, feeling frustrated by the employment search, and clinging to your freshly repeated evidence that you really are “correct” about how “bad you are.”

There are ways to begin to step out of undervaluing yourself.

1. Start by cutting out the negative self-talk, especially when it pertains to your job search.

2. Gather positive facts about yourself and what you have to offer professionally.

3. Ask 3 people to tell you 3 good things about you and write them down.

Shining a light on your strengths and positive facts about you are especially crucial for those who:

1. Have been unemployed long term and are still searching

2. Are receiving job rejections one after the other

3. Are struggling with mental health

4. Are overcoming job/boss abuse.

And one bonus tip to inspire you… You and only you are the author of the story of your life.

Decide to rewrite your story TODAY.

For more Career Development and Job Search tips, follow me on LinkedIn.

– Kelley Joyce, MBA, CPC

Kelley is a career development coach who is dedicated to helping people discover their career path and land their dream jobs. Kelley and her partner Josh live in New York City from which she has served hundreds of professionals across the U.S., U.K., and Australia since 2012 to radically change their relationship with work.