23/05/2026
You’re probably giving more than you charge for.
And then resenting the invoice you wrote yourself.
I’ve done this my entire career. I’m still doing it.
Price the project low.
Work twice as hard to justify the number.
Three extra revisions outside scope.
Training that ran long. Follow-up calls I didn’t bill for.
Not because clients pushed for it.
Because somewhere in me, the number never felt like enough.
As if working harder could fix what I should have charged to begin with. It can’t.
There’s a specific kind of person who goes into service work.
She cares too much about the result to let the invoice be the ceiling.
She’d rather give more than risk being seen as not worth what she charged.
She ends up exhausted.
Not because the work is too hard.
Because she keeps compensating for what she didn’t charge.
Borrowing from her own time and energy to close a gap she created.
We came out of corporate knowing our output mattered.
Knowing we were capable.
Somehow on our own, we still find ways to prove it for free.
Comment SAME if you recognise yourself in this.