Give Yourself Credit

How easily do we share with others the small or great achievements we accomplish in our everyday life?

There is a challenge with sharing publicly what we call “wins”:

-  We are afraid of how others will judge us: that we are bragging or showing off.
-  We think our win is not important enough to share. It’s just something small, even if it took a lot of work, time, or effort to achieve.
-  We feel others will not be interested in listening; even if our win is very important to us and makes us very happy, why should they care for it?
-  We have been taught that a modest person does not talk about him/herself and so should we.
-  That confident people do not need to talk about themselves and their achievements; only arrogant people do.

I had always been told by my mother that if I do something right or good, I should let others talk about it. If I am good at something, others should acknowledge it, not me.

We have a ritual at the coaching school where I teach: we start each class by inviting students to share a recent win with us and celebrate together. Exploring the obstacles that prevent us from generously share our wins with them today, I realized that I was still hesitant to do what I was asking.

So, the first thing I did straight after class was to challenge all these beliefs and post both on twitter and facebook the following message (in Greek): “If you do not follow my blog, you are missing out” (together with a request for feedback, ideas and support). That was something I never would have dared to write or say before. 

If you allowed yourself to be proud today, to generously acknowledge the baby steps that you are taking everyday, what would you “brag” about?