Over 10 years ago when I was early in my career, I started a folder titled “nice emails.” I don’t work for that employer any longer, so unfortunately can’t investigate to see what that initial “nice email” was. But whatever it was prompted me to start this folder.
Starting that “nice emails” folder has been one of the best moves I have made in my career. Getting in the habit of tracking my wins and being able to communicate my successes has been key in earning promotions and earning top performance scores at my annual reviews. A prior manager even made the comment that I had the most detailed and thorough self evaluation of anyone they had ever managed.
Every time a co-worker or client would send a nice email, I would simply drag it into my folder. A lot happens between scheduled performance reviews where you get a chance to tell your story. The last thing that you want to do is show up to your performance review without being able to clearly articulate the value that you have been creating for your organization and the areas where you went above and beyond.
Having verbatim comments supporting your stellar efforts turn a stick figure drawing into a masterpiece. And, keeping track of these wins isn’t just about impressing your higher ups. It is also about helping you to track your own personal victories. On a down day or week, it can be motivating to get a reminder of some of the recent and past wins you’ve had. Most of us have high expectations of ourselves, which is great; but we also have to be a little kinder to ourselves and celebrate accomplishments.
In addition to including complements and testimonials of your work, consider also including measurable results. How can you draw conclusions from the work you have done to illustrate your impact within your team and organization. Did you help save an important client from leaving? Did you help with a new prospect? Have you worked on a project that helped save money for the company? Have you created efficiencies to streamline processes? Have you improved the client experience? Have you kept things running smoothly and predictable among internal or external chaos? Once you identify ways to continually track your impact, it becomes easier to draw conclusions in year over year increases and improvement.
Most bosses want you to be successful. Why would a boss want employees that don’t succeed and perform? A poor performing and dysfunctional team would reflect poorly on them and their leadership abilities. A good manager will recognize and track some of your wins and accomplishments; but the truth is, they are human and won’t remember everything and certainly not the specifics. As I said, they’re human; they’re probably busy worrying about their own performance and external perception half of the time. Make it easy on them to tell your story to their leadership and up the ladder. A good leader sees their teams’ individual and collective successes as their own success.
I highly recommend the book How Women Rise. I read this as part of a work event and found it extremely helpful. It has helpful advice for both men and women. As a man, it was helpful for me to realize that I can help the women in my personal and professional life identify and communicate their successes and aspirations. Megan is not into “self-help” books (which is a blog post for another day), but even she agrees this book was very impactful and has helped her significantly in navigating her career. She even purchased a copy for a co-worker as a gift.
To take the topic one step further, I also recommend this podcast on imposter syndrome by Rikke Hansen on the Career Change Podcast. Rikke does a great job of helping listeners to strategically plan their career and provides advice on how to get out of your own way on things. Everyone deals with self doubt or uncertainty at times; it’s a natural part of being human. Rikke provides guidance on how to identify and track your wins, so that you can keep yourself motivated and on track with where you want to get to.
letswinatlife.com 
Leave a comment