Take Stock of Your Wins!
Many years ago, I discovered a book called Your Best Year Yet: Ten Questions for Making Your Next Twelve Months the Most Successful Ever.
In it, author Jinny Ditzler invites you take stock of yourself by answering questions like,
What did you accomplish, and what disappointed you in the past year?
What goals do you want to adopt for the coming year? and
What are your values?
Normally, these sorts of exercises are not my idea of a good time. (They’re too “New Age-y” for someone who still has PTSD from the 1960s! ) But I do the exercises anyway, because we need to be clear about our own accomplishments.
Being aware of what we’ve achieved helps to:
Lift our spirits, and counter the all-too-common messages that society (and social media) deliver about how we’re (supposedly) falling short;
Win what we deserve, whether that’s promotion, recognition, opportunity, or even a new job; and
Inspire and motivate the people around us, who could use a model for how to matter-of-factly acknowledge their own achievements.
None of this involves bragging or being obnoxious. It’s just that, if we don’t tell our own success stories, who will?
Take Stock of these Three Things
There’ll be many times during your career—job interviews are just one obvious example—when you may be called on to discuss:
Your strengths;
Your areas for improvement, a/k/a weaknesses; and
Your successes.
Most of us would have trouble talking about these things even if we weren’t at a job interview—partly because the questions are so personal, and partly because…we probably don’t think about our strengths and successes very often. (Ambitious people think about our weaknesses all the time, but that doesn’t mean we’re good at talking about them!)
These are all big topics, so in this post, let’s focus on your successes.
You can keep track of the things you’re doing well gradually, or all at once. It’s up to you which approach you prefer.
1. Notice the Good Stuff Every Day
Tracking your wins “gradually” means that you’re noting things as they happen. Maybe you journal every day, or keep personal comments in your calendar. These are both great ways to focus your attention on your achievements.
If you’re not in the habit of regularly praising yourself (and how many of us are?), you may need to make that an explicit part of your record-keeping—maybe by giving yourself a “prompt” like this one:
Today, I did several great/excellent/noteworthy/positive things, including…
Finish that sentence, every day, and you’ll have a detailed record of your achievements.
(A variation on this approach is to think about three successes or positive actions just before you fall asleep each night.)
2. Take Stock Whenever (and However) You Can
For those of us who find it hard to follow through with daily practices, one alternative is to sit down on New Year’s Day…or your birthday…or the third Wednesday of every month…or whenever, to recall (and write down) the great things we’ve done since the last time we thought about it.
You won’t remember everything with this approach, but by definition, the things you remember will be important.
And if that’s still more structure than you’re fond of, another way to take stock is to pay attention whenever positive information about your achievements presents itself, whether it comes externally (from a compliment or more formal feedback) or internally (a memory, or something you notice).
Positive information presented itself to me recently when I started re-reading my book, Interview Like Yourself…No, Really!, and realized that—contrary to my memories—the book is really good.
Somehow, over time, I’d forgotten about the book’s strengths, but held onto a lingering memory of its supposed weaknesses. (Gee, when has that every happened before! :-))
Which got me asking: What other big accomplishments from the last few years have I forgotten to remember?
Which got me thinking about this blog post.
Any Time is a Good Time to Notice Your Achievements
So now that I’m reminded of the importance of tracking our successes…I’m going to take stock by making a list, and going back to answer the questions in Jenny Ditzler’s book.
(And it’s not even New Year’s or my birthday!)
How about you?
What proud accomplishments have you forgotten to remember?
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