Every time we apply for a job, wait to be graded or apply for financial aid, we ask ourselves the inevitable question: What are we worth? Are we worth $10 or $11 per hour? Do we deserve a full-ride scholarship — as elusive as they are at Boston University? Do we deserve an “A” in calculus? We never really take to time assess our own worth until someone is assessing it for us.

Now is the time to take a personal inventory of the value we add to others’ lives, may it be romantically, professionally or just by being ourselves.

Take a piece of paper and start listing 10 things that are great about you, not what you achieved, but what about you that makes the world better. I know this may sound a little too “motivational,” but if you don’t do this, no one else will. Do this every night and when it becomes easy, try writing 20. When you get into the habit of writing 20 things every night, push yourself and begin writing 30 new things about you every night before bed.

Now you may have been thinking, “Great, I have a few more self-esteem points. But how does this show how much I should be making at work?”

Well, that’s up to you. If you see that your decisions and skills in the workplace are really adding value to the way the business profits and functions, turn that into monetary value.

For example, say you are a personal trainer and your clients are paying $60 to your gym to have a session with you. Soon, they end up achieving the results they want and start recommending friends to you and bringing more business into your gym. If you’re only seeing $15 of that, it’s time to start asking for a raise.

Steve Linder, a lead performance strategist that you should Google, said a person does not get paid by how hard they work or the manual labor they put into it, a person gets paid by the impact of their decisions. The decisions of a few CEOs impact our entire economy, while deciding what color trash bags to use has little impact on our lives.

Look at it another way. Say that you’re in a relationship, and your significant other isn’t trying as hard as you are to make the relationship work. You are committed, but they are not. You need to show them that you deserve better, but you can’t do that unless you know what you’re worth.

It is time to live up to what you’re really worth and the results you’re achieving. If you’re afraid to ask, then will never know what you deserve.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. Ramones can be reached at [email protected].