I almost talked myself out of my own price today.

Someone asked me what I charge. I gave the number confidently. And then, in my head, I immediately started unraveling it. "Well, if that's too much, we could do less of this and bring the cost down a bit..."

I caught it before it came out of my mouth. But barely.

And here's the thing, the person didn't flinch. They weren't asking me to justify it or negotiate it down. They were just... ready to say yes. The only one with a problem was me.

I think a lot of us do this. We quote our price and then immediately apologize for it, or start pre-emptively building an escape hatch for the other person before they've even had a chance to respond.

We treat our number like it needs defending when really, it just needs space.

Has this happened to you? Did you catch it, or did it come out before you could stop it?

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