Why Even Successful Women Hesitate to Charge What They're Worth - 36

Many high-achieving women are incredibly competent, respected, and successful on paper — yet still find themselves hesitating in moments that involve money. 

Maybe it’s softening your rates.
Avoiding a negotiation.
Over-delivering instead of charging more.
Or feeling uncomfortable being visible about your success. 

In this episode, we explore the subtle and often invisible ways professional women shrink financially — not because they lack skill or ambition, but because deeper emotional and social patterns are at play. 

This episode is part of a larger exploration happening this month on the podcast. 

Inside the 30-Day Money Shadow Work Series, we go deeper into the beliefs, identity patterns, and nervous system responses that shape our relationship with money. 

Through daily reflections, journaling prompts, and guided exercises, the series helps you: 

• Recognize unconscious money patterns
 • Expand your capacity to receive
 • Navigate money conversations with greater confidence
 • Step into visibility without shrinking 

The first few episodes are available on the free podcast, and the full 30-day journey continues inside the premium podcast (linked below). 

Transcript

Autumn G Noble (00:00)

Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today I wanna talk about something that I see constantly when working with high achieving women, especially lawyers, executives and other professionals. It's something that usually surprises people because it shows up in individuals who are incredibly competent, accomplished and respected. And that is this quiet tendency to shrink around money.

not in really obvious ways and not in ways that would show up on a resume, but it's in really subtle moments. And what I mean is moments like hesitating before quoting a price, avoiding a negotiation conversation or discounting your services before anyone even asks for a discount. Or maybe it's softening your accomplishments in a room where everyone else is doing the same thing.

Those moments are really small, but they're powerful and they have a lot to tell us about our own energy around money. Because over time, these types of moments shape how much we earn, how visible we become, and how confidently we occupy our own professional spaces. So I wanna start off today just by giving you something to chew on a little bit.

Have you ever been in a conversation about money, a salary, a fee, a rate, a promotion, and felt the impulse to make yourself a little bit smaller? Maybe you add a qualifier. Well, it's not that big of a deal. Or maybe you soften your request. Maybe you say something like, well, this is just what I was thinking, or I'm flexible, or whatever works for you. And again,

This doesn't mean that you're weak or incapable. In fact, women who experience this most often are usually very successful, which makes this even more interesting and why it's something that we need to talk about more.

When people hear the phrase shrinking, they often imagine something pretty dramatic, but in reality, it's often very subtle. And it can look like pre-negotiating against yourself or lowering your price before anyone pushes back. Maybe it's over explaining your rates or working harder to justify your value instead of simply stating it.

or avoiding conversations that could lead to financial expansion.

For many professionals, it also shows up as over delivering. Instead of raising rates, they just add more value. And instead of negotiating compensation, they work longer hours. Instead of advocating for themselves, they prove their worth through output. And while this can lead to success in the short term, it often creates long-term frustration that's just always boiling below the surface because effort keeps increasing.

while the compensation doesn't always keep pace. And I have to tell you, I have seen this so many times working with professional women, especially those that are pursuing some type of a raise or promotion. They have this massive plan of working harder, giving more, and pushing and pushing in hopes that their employer will see it and then just offer them the raise or the promotion.

Instead of owning their value, not killing themselves and overproducing and just asking for what they deserve, they try to lay out as much data and evidence as possible in the face of their employer, hoping that their employer will just give them what they want without them having to ask for it. And I think it's really curious why we do that.

They know they provide value. They know that they're doing good work. So why not just have the conversation instead of killing yourself and hoping that they see it? And usually what's in there is this incredible discomfort around asking for more. And in their head, they're doing that pre-negotiating. What if they say this? What if they say I'm not working hard enough? Or what do they say if I'm not contributing enough? And so they backfill against those anticipated

obstacles or that anticipated pushback

and try to make sure that they have a full arsenal in response at that feedback that hasn't even happened. And so they kind of create this.

Imagine scenario that hasn't happened that also drives them to work more all simply because of the discomfort around just having the conversation. What's very interesting to me is that by the end of this cycle, when I catch women who have spent years doing this over delivering, over performing in hopes that their employers will see it and reward it after so much time of doing that.

They are so frustrated and fed up that they're finally able to say, you know what, this is ridiculous. If you don't see my value and what I'm giving, I don't want to work here anymore. And so after so long of doing that, the frustration reaches such a level that they are so ready just to walk away. And at that point, when I catch them in their careers, they are more than happy to pull back, give less,

and sort of play this game of chicken with their employer to see who asks the question first. Like, I need a raise or I'm leaving or the employer coming back and saying, why are you working less?

and what's going on here. And so for me, it's just very interesting to notice that at the end of this pattern, we're sort of forcing the conversation and scaling back in kind of a passive aggressive manner to get your employer to notice how much you used to give. Instead of just having the conversation at the beginning and saying, hey, this is the value that I offer and the value that I add, I want to be compensated for it.

They overwork, over-deliver, build themselves into this frenzy. And now they're so frustrated because oftentimes the employer doesn't know what they're secretly wanting them to give them in exchange for this over-delivery. The employer just keeps taking it because why wouldn't they? And now the employer is in this space where they had this really high performing employee who is now pulling back, quietly resentful and seems to be really frustrated about everything and now they're confused. And so it creates this really strange dynamic.

that could have been avoided all along if we had just had that conversation instead of avoiding it. And so I think for a lot of us to save ourselves years of that weird over-delivering, hoping that they pick up on it and do something with it, that's a very uncomfortable cycle to be in with your employer. And think about it in your personal relationships too, which I think is where this pattern also shows up.

And we want our partners and our spouses to do certain things. And we kind of hint around them and we go out of our way to do all these things, hoping that they know just exactly what it is that we're wanting from them instead of just asking for it. It's the same type of a pattern. And so I always say how you do one thing is how you do all things. And so if you are doing this in your professional life, you're probably doing it in your personal life as well. And it all comes back to why is it so hard for us?

to own our value, own our worth, and ask for what we believe that we're entitled to. And in some cases, that may mean more compensation.

The research tells us that one of the reasons that this pattern shows up so often for women is that money conversations carry a lot of social risk.

In a lot of professional environments, women are still navigating this invisible, weird balancing act that is impossible. We're supposed to be confident, but not arrogant. Be ambitious, but likable. Advocate for yourself, but don't make people uncomfortable. And whether people own these sort of stereotypes or norms or not, they're there. And I think as women, they've been imparted upon us for so long.

that now we're uncomfortable when we're toeing that line between confidence and arrogance, ambition and likability. Because we know somewhere in there is that we're not supposed to be too ambitious, but we really also need to be likable. It's ingrained in every way we try and temper ourselves. And that tension can make financial conversations feel surprisingly loaded and heavy.

Studies on negotiation behavior have found that women are often evaluated differently than men when they advocate strongly for themselves financially. In some environments, assertive negotiation can lead to perceptions that a woman is difficult or aggressive, even when the same behavior would be expected from a male colleague. And I'm not saying that any of this is done consciously or intentionally. I'm a firm believer that every human on this planet

carries unconscious bias with them. And if you believe that you don't, I think you have a lot of work to do because that is just not how human brains work. They work on a bias and they develop bias in order to be efficient. And so I do think that yes, this happens and sometimes it's intentional, but I think a lot of the times it's not and it is unconscious.

So given all of this, it makes a lot of sense that women would learn to soften their approaches, whether they're doing it consciously or unconsciously. And we do this to stay agreeable, to minimize friction. And while that kind of an adaptation can be socially strategic, it can also quietly limit our financial growth, especially when it compounds over time.

Another interesting thing that I see is something called preemptive shrinking. And I see this a lot with lawyers, and I think it's because our brains were sort of trained to anticipate obstacles and anticipate arguments.

So what I mean when I say preemptive shrinking, it happens when someone anticipates resistance before it even occurs. So for example, this may look like.

So for example, a consultant might lower their rate before even presenting it. A lawyer might avoid asking for higher compensation structure because they assume the answer will be no. An entrepreneur might keep their prices lower than peers because they don't want to appear too expensive. But what's so fascinating is that the anticipated pushback often never would have happened. It's all in your head.

the shrinking happens internally first. And so we adjust our prices, we reduce the ask before we've even hit any obstacles or objections. And this is so interesting to me because I recently experienced this in kind of the other part of my realm. So I do career and life coaching and I take a more holistic approach.

So I spend a portion of my time doing holistic services, physical fitness and personal training type work with my coaching clients. And I recently joined a new health club and we were talking about the rates that I was gonna be charging for my personal training and holistic sessions. And the range was somewhere between I think $100 and $150 an hour. And I remember thinking that...

is a crazy amount for people to spend on personal training. Like, am I worth that much? And I'm looking around at these other personal trainers and they're young. I mean, they're 20 years old. They don't have nearly the experience that I have in life or in this space, but they have no qualms about selling themselves for that type of pricing. But even as I was thinking about making my first sale,

I could feel myself adjusting my pricing and say, well, maybe I should offer a discount because I'm new, or maybe I should do this instead just to try and get more clients and just really anticipating all the pushback and all the objections. And I found it so interesting that as someone in my 40s with all the experience that I have in the service industry, was where my mind went. But these younger...

people who hadn't kind of had that experience or maybe experienced some of the pushback that I had in my career, it didn't occur to them to shrink ahead of time. And I just found it such an interesting dichotomy. And maybe it was an age thing, maybe it's an experience thing, maybe it's the fact that I'm a woman and this is just a pattern that I've been living my whole life. But I share that just to say that even as we do this work,

We don't fix all of it. We just start to notice those patterns and tendencies more so that we're able to adjust for them and prevent the shrink. So for me, I had to kind of embrace this space of like, yeah, I am worth it. And I had to go through all the mental exercises to support my value that I was offering. And I had to do it in order to counteract my own preemptive

shrinking and it took looking around at the people around me and their ability to own that space and own their value without any hesitation to sort of get me to buck up. And that was kind of a fun little experience for me, but it just goes to show that we can address these issues in one area of our life, but it doesn't mean we solve them across the board. It is an ongoing evolution of our brains tendencies and our own patterns.

What I think is also really baked into this is the fact that money and visibility are deeply connected.

And the more visible someone becomes, the more their work, success, and income are going to be seen. And for a lot of people, that level of visibility can feel really vulnerable because that visibility can mean they're being evaluated, they're being judged, and sometimes even being criticized. And so with those sort of unconscious beliefs floating around and fears floating around, it certainly makes sense.

that we would preemptively shrink because we don't want to be judged. We don't want people to say your rates are too high or you're too expensive or you don't have the knowledge, wisdom and skill to justify that rate. And so that's where the visibility piece comes into it. It's this idea that if we charge more, we're going to be seen more. And the more that we're seen, the more that people are exposed to our success or our income, the more people are going to judge us, the more we're going to be evaluated, and the more that people are going to look at.

the value that we're offering in exchange for that price. And that feels very scary. But at the end of the day, it's just visibility. It's just being seen for the value that you're offering. And so that's where shrinking financially can become a way of staying under the radar and trying to protect yourself from that judgment and that exposure. If you don't charge more, if you don't negotiate, if you don't step into bigger opportunities,

then you avoid the attention that comes with growth. And again, this is rarely conscious, but it's powerful to see. Years ago, one of my favorite coaches that I worked with for many, many years, she used to say, if people aren't talking badly about you on the internet or leaving you nasty comments, you're not playing big enough. And I thought that was a really interesting take on visibility is really what she was talking about.

If you're not owning your truth enough to make some people disagree with you or make some people uncomfortable, you're probably not being visible enough. You're not playing big enough and being authentic enough. Not everyone's gonna like you and you're not gonna be for everybody. But if you're living authentically and you're putting that truth and value out there, the people that aren't your people that disagree with you and disagree with those parts of you, they're gonna have something to say about it.

And so I do think it's an interesting measure of how much are we forcing ourselves to evolve? How visible are we being? How authentic are we being? And a very simple metric of that is how much negative feedback are we getting on the internet? Is it out there? Are people seeing me? Are people disagreeing with me? And I'm not saying that we should be inviting people to pick fights with us on the internet, but I do think it raises a curious question.

If we're not getting some negative feedback, are we being seen enough? Are we being real enough? Are we being honest enough? And for me, that's always kind of been a question at the end of the day is, you know, am I being real enough that my people will find me and the people that aren't my people will keep on moving and maybe have something to say about it. And that's really the space that I want to live in. And I am open to the possibility that if people are going to criticize me and have something negative to say about me,

That's okay, and that's a sign that I'm being honest and I'm being visible and putting myself in a space to invite that kind of criticism because that's the type of authenticity that I want to live in order to put my value out into the world. And that has dramatically changed my willingness to be open and honest and visible with what I charge and the value that I offer.

So here's a question for each of you to sit with. Where do you notice yourself shrinking in financial conversations? Is it when you talk about your rates or when someone asks what you charge? When there's an opportunity for negotiation or promotion? Or when visibility around your success increases? And just notice which one of those types of scenarios makes you uncomfortable.

makes you qualify your achievements or downplay what you've done. Because often the first step is simply recognizing the moment when your instinct and patterns kick in and drive you to shrink to keep yourself safe, because it's just biology. Your brain is trying to protect you from all of those potential fears and risks. But we can't fix that pattern in your brain and teach it that this is safer than it may seem.

if we don't notice it first. So we just simply start by recognizing those moments when our brain and our instincts call us to pull back a little bit. Once you start noticing those moments, that's when things start to get really interesting. You start catching the pattern in real time and you notice the urge to soften your language.

You notice the instinct to lower your rate and you notice the moment where you might normally just take a step back. And that awareness, that breath, that pause creates choice. It gives you an opportunity to choose differently. Instead of automatically shrinking, you can experiment with staying present, holding firm at your number, holding your boundary, embracing the value of your work.

embracing that evolution. And that's where real change begins.

I love this work so much and this kind of pattern is exactly what we're exploring in this month's 30-day money shadow work series because noticing the moment that you shrink is really powerful. But the next step is learning how to respond differently in those moments and how to stay grounded in your value, how to navigate money conversations with more ease and how to expand your capacity to receive.

So if you're noticing moments where you shrink or undercharge or hesitate around money, my premium 30-day shadow work experience will help you uncover why the patterns exist and is going to guide you in practicing new ways of showing up. It includes daily exercises, journaling prompts, and guided reflections that will allow you to begin exploring the deeper beliefs

shaping your relationship with money and where those beliefs came from and why we clung to them to begin with so that we can dismantle them. The program allows you to pattern new beliefs around holding your value, negotiating with confidence, receiving more comfortably and stepping into visibility without fear. If that resonates with you, the premium podcast is waiting for you. You can find the link in the show notes.

If that's not for you, that is all fine and good. Stay with me here and enjoy the free content. Either way, thank you so much for being here and exploring this conversation with me. Money conversations can feel surprisingly vulnerable, even for the most accomplished professionals.

But the more awareness that we bring to these patterns, the more freedom we create around how we earn, negotiate, and grow. And that freedom is powerful. It's why I do this work. I can't wait to see you in the next episode where we will continue with our discussion around money.

And specifically, we're gonna be talking about building worthiness before wealth. And this idea that worthiness often precedes sustainable financial growth. And we're gonna talk about how to emphasize worthiness in a long-term integrative process so that you can create more wealth and abundance. So it's a perfect way of ending this month and our discussions on wealth and money. And I cannot wait.

to see you there. As always, my friends, thanks so much for listening and thanks for sharing with those around you who could also benefit from this work. It truly allows me to reach as many women as possible who are needing this type of guidance and support so that we can all elevate our power together.

Until next time, my friends.

I will see you all next week.