{"id":12991,"date":"2020-03-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotwork.com\/nz\/blog-nz\/you-think-a-lot-of-yourself\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T17:37:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:37:02","slug":"you-think-a-lot-of-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotwork.com\/nz\/blog-nz\/2020\/you-think-a-lot-of-yourself","title":{"rendered":"You think a lot of yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"
Anyone who comes from the North of England will see this phrase as one of the greatest insults you can hurl. Thinking a lot of yourself is a phrase my grandmother used to use frequently as a put down for people who clearly had aspirations above their station as she would think.\n\nNortherners are known for their level-headedness and blunt manner; they call a spade a spade. It\u2019s also a proven scientific fact that northerners are tougher than their southerner neighbours. Well, there\u2019s no actual evidence, but give over. Just look at them. The hardest men in the entire south, such as Vinnie Jones and Ross Kemp, could still be beaten by the weakest, most malnourished child from the Rochdale. Even the words they use to describe hard people like \u2018naughty\u2019, \u2018handy\u2019 and \u2018tasty\u2019 sound soppy.\n\nAnyway, this thinking a lot of yourself seems to be something that most of us are guilty of. Most of us believe we are a lot better than average.\n\nYou get an email from your boss scheduling your annual review for next month. You start compiling a list of all the successes you have achieved this year. To you it looks like a long and let\u2019s face it impressive list. You start to fall for your own hype and think you should be pushing harder for both that hefty pay rise and promotion. After all you could run rings round anyone else in your office.\n\nYou are not alone.\n\nThe psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger ran an experiment with 194 students to take a series of logic and grammar tests and then subsequently asked them to predict how they did against their peers. On average participants felt that they would perform in the 68th<\/sup>\u00a0percentile, better than two-thirds of their fellow test filers. Obviously, they could not all be right.\n\nIn 1981 a study at the University of Stockholm found that 88% of drivers felt they were safer than the average. Even academics who should know better fall for this overconfidence, 90% of them at the University of Nebraska thought they were above average at teaching.\n\nWhy is this important?\n\nWell, the most often searched term in the space that we operate in as a business is \u201cHow to negotiate a better salary?\u201d. Seems that many of you people out there think that you are worth more than you currently get.\n\nNow many of you will be right. And of course, negotiation will help enormously to help you reach a better deal.\n\nTake a look\u00a0here\u00a0<\/a>to see some of our top tips for negotiating a better package.\n\nOne danger of overconfidence is that we do not do our preparation effectively, we fail to ask questions of our own beliefs. Do your homework, and particularly if you are of the gender that often underestimates their own value make sure you are on the front foot by recognising your worth.\n\nThat is true of any negotiation, turn that to your real advantage.\n\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who comes from the North of England will see this phrase as one of the greatest insults you can hurl. Thinking a lot of yourself is a phrase my grandmother used to use frequently as a put down for people who clearly had aspirations above their station as she would think. Northerners are known…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":12992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_legacy_url":"blog-nz\/2020\/you-think-a-lot-of-yourself","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYou think a lot of yourself | Scotwork NZ Negotiation Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"World leaders in business negotiation training and consultancy with experts across 120 countries, with negotiation courses taught in 29 languages.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scotwork.com\/nz\/blog-nz\/2020\/you-think-a-lot-of-yourself\/\" \/>\n<meta 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