When Publicis offered me three times what I'd been making at my last job, I nearly fell off my chair. The number felt enormous. I said "I'm fine with that" like I was doing them a favour by accepting. I was trying not to smile.

From there the numbers kept climbing. I moved to another company for 10% more. Then I negotiated a different arrangement that brought me to a 30% increase. Then I got headhunted for double. Then consulting. Each step felt significant at the time.

Looking back, the pattern is obvious. I never asked for what I was worth. I accepted what felt like an improvement over the last number.

That's how most people price themselves. Not based on what they bring to the table but based on what they used to make. The previous salary becomes the anchor. Anything above it feels like a raise. Anything significantly above it feels like a gift. You stop calculating your value and start calculating your distance from where you were.

Every time I moved jobs, the new number felt like enough. And every time, within a year, I'd realize it wasn't. Not because I was greedy but because I'd grown into a clearer picture of what I actually contributed. The gap was always there. I just noticed it after I'd already agreed.

Here's the mechanism I didn't see until I looked at every negotiation as a sequence instead of individual wins. I wasn't negotiating. I was escaping. Every salary conversation started from the same place: what I was currently making felt insufficient, and anything significantly more than that triggered relief. The relief felt like satisfaction. It wasn't. It was the feeling of tension ending, and I mistook it for the feeling of getting what I deserved.

Relief optimizes for ending discomfort, not for choosing well. The moment the number was high enough to stop the anxiety, I said yes. I didn't pause to ask whether it was accurate. I didn't research what the role paid at other companies. I didn't sit with the offer long enough for the relief to pass and the real assessment to begin. I just wanted the uncomfortable part to be over, and "I'm fine with that" made it stop.

That's why the gap kept reappearing. I wasn't pricing myself. I was medicating the discomfort of the conversation with the first number that felt like enough. And "enough" was always measured against where I'd been, never against what the work was worth.

I don't regret the Publicis number. That job changed the direction of my career. But I think about that moment sometimes. Sitting in the interview, hearing three times my salary, trying to keep a straight face. Saying "I'm fine with that" as if it were a measured response. It wasn't measured. It was relief wearing a professional voice.

The move I use now before any negotiation, salary or otherwise, is to write down what I think the thing is worth before I hear the offer. Not what I'd accept. Not what would feel like a win compared to my current situation. What the work, the role, the contribution is actually worth if I had no previous number to compare it to. I write it down and I don't look at it until after I've heard their number.

The gap between those two numbers is the cost of anchoring. Sometimes they're close and the offer is fair. Sometimes my number is significantly higher and I know the relief is about to lie to me. Either way, having my own number written down before the conversation starts means the negotiation happens against my assessment, not against my last salary.

It's a small thing. But "I'm fine with that" has cost me more money than any bad investment I've ever made.