Costing and Pricing work

I spent a great day yesterday with a group of Artists in County Tipperary. I was running a workshop on “costing and pricing your work” but that was only a ruse for the real learning which, of course, took place between the participants. I think we had some fun (I certainly did) and I think there were some shocks for people – particularly when we did some actual calculations of how much it costs to make work – most people came expecting the secret code to pricing not having given too much thought to what they are spending (visible and hidden) to create their art.
But what I was left with after the day was the overwhelming self doubt that plagues people who put themselves out in the world with work that is so personal. This isn’t unique to artists, it’s something that anyone who is self employed faces at some point in their career. One of the issues that arose yesterday was – how can I expect someone else to have confidence in my work if I don’t have it? We spend so much time wanting external affirmation about what we do and if we don’t have a strong sense of our own value then others’ opinions of us can either inflate or inflate our sense of self and we’re left powerless to have any impact.