Wellbeing Wednesday: The Price of Authenticity. Staying True to Your Values When the World Says “You Should”

Welcome back to Wellbeing Wednesday. Today, I want to talk about a quiet, constant battle that so many value-driven freelancers, therapists, teachers, and creatives face every single day.

It is the challenge of maintaining internal congruence: staying fiercely true to your core beliefs, ethics, and standards when the world around you is loudly shouting that you “should” do things differently.

If I am being completely candid, this is something I wrestle with regularly in my own work. As someone who wears multiple hats (a music therapist, peripatetic teacher, private music tutor, performer and musical director) I am constantly bombarded with well-meaning advice from the outside world:

“You SHOULD be charging much more for your private lessons.”

“You SHOULD stop doing so much community and volunteer work for free.”

“You SHOULD expand your teaching list to include every instrument parents ask for—it’s easy money!”

“You SHOULD use backing tracks, you’d make more money” (don’t get me started on this one, it is a major bug bear – KEEP MUSIC LIVE!!!)

On paper, business advice often boils down to pure financial optimisation: maximise profit, scale up, and charge whatever the market will bear. But when you operate from a clinical, ethical, and deeply human foundation, pure business logic often clashes directly with your personal values.

So how do we navigate this frustration? How do we protect our “wellbeing baseline” when staying true to ourselves means swimming against the cultural tide?

1. Pricing with Purpose vs. Pricing People Out

Let’s talk about the constant pressure to “know your worth” by simply raising your prices. Yes, fair pay for qualified professionals is vital; we all have bills to pay and families to support. But in the real world, especially within our local communities, blindly pushing rates up has real-life consequences.

• The Local Reality: If I were to raise my lesson rates to match high-end urban corporate standards, I know exactly what would happen: I would price local families and passionate young people straight out of the market.
• The Value Anchor: My belief is that music therapy and high-quality music education shouldn’t be a luxury reserved exclusively for the privileged. Keeping lessons accessible to local families isn’t “bad business”; it is a deliberate, value-led choice.
• The Reframe: Your worth isn’t measured by how high a price tag you can attach to an hour of your time. Your worth is reflected in the integrity, accessibility, and genuine impact of your work. When you price with purpose, you aren’t “undervaluing yourself”; you are actively building the kind of community you want to live in.

2. The Mechanics of Integrity: Why Qualifications Matter

Then comes the second side of the coin: the pressure to be a “jack-of-all-trades” for easy income.

In the singing and music world, there is a pervasive problem that drives me quietly mad. Too often, people offer singing lessons simply because they play the piano decently or can carry a tune themselves, without having the faintest understanding of vocal anatomy, mechanics, or safe vocal technique. Parents and bill-payers, understandably “bamboozled” by musical jargon or fancy branding, pay into these services trusting that their child is in expert hands.

Unintentionally, poorly trained instruction can cause real harm, leading to vocal strain, fatigue, or long-term bad habits that take years to unlearn.

• My Line in the Sand: I have a strict, non-negotiable personal boundary: I will never teach an instrument or technique that I do not deeply understand or am not clinically/professionally proficient in.
• The Clinical Duty of Care: My training as a music therapist and vocal practitioner isn’t just a badge on the wall; it is my duty of care. Refusing to take money for things outside my expertise isn’t a missed opportunity, it is the very definition of professional congruence.

3. The Exhaustion of “The Shoulds” (And How to Protect Your Peace)

Standing by your principles when others are cutting corners or telling you you’re “doing it wrong” is emotionally draining. It can trigger deep frustration, self-doubt, or make you feel like you are working twice as hard for half the credit.

• The Music Therapy Link: Resonance and Dissonance. In Carl Rogers’ humanistic psychology, congruence occurs when your internal self (your values, beliefs, and ethics) matches your external behavior. When there is a gap between what you believe and how you act, your nervous system experiences constant, grating dissonance.
• The Relief: Playing a role or chasing money at the expense of your values creates chronic internal friction. Standing firm in your congruence might feel lonely at times, but it allows you to sleep at night with a clear head and a peaceful heart. Your internal instrument stays perfectly in tune.

Your Congruence Toolkit:

• Name Your Non-Negotiables: Write down 2–3 core values that guide your work (e.g., Accessibility, Integrity, Duty of Care). When someone offers advice starting with “You should…”, run it through those core values first. If it doesn’t fit, let it go.
• Reframe Volunteering as “Soul Equity”: Community choir work or local volunteering isn’t “wasted time.” It is how we invest in social equity and feed our own creative souls outside the commercial machine.
• The “Unconditional Positive Regard” for Your Path: Stop comparing your slow, ethical, value-driven build with someone else’s fast, high-volume hustle. Authenticity is a marathon, not a sprint.

Staying true to your beliefs in a world obsessed with quick profit isn’t easy. But when you look in the mirror at the end of a long day of teaching, therapy, or directing, knowing you treated people fairly and held your standards high is worth more than any price hike. Keep standing firm; your community needs your authentic voice.