Claiming Your Success: Why We Struggle to Take the Win

How many times have you been congratulated on an accomplishment or complimented on work (or an outfit) done right and you respond with some version of, yeah but… ? Probably too many, right? It has become second nature for us to discredit the work and the effort we put into things. We just can’t take the win. Big or small, if we get positive feedback, we brush it off. In my very anecdotal experience, I see women do this at all ages and stages of life. Grandmas baking cookies, say it’s their mother’s recipe when you compliment the taste. Little girls in book fairs and science fairs point out the minor flaws when you gush about their impressive research. The moms in the thick of raising kids will always tell you they’re a mess, or are typically a mess, if you compliment or congratulate them for anything to do with their kids, home, or themselves.

Why can’t we take the win?

I do know men with this same struggle. There are a few who struggle to take the win, celebrate, and move on to thinking about something else or tackling that next problem. For the most part though, men seem to be confident that things will work well and that they themselves had a great deal to do with that. That tendency does not come naturally to me, so I won’t speak to it. I will speak to what may be causing you (all of us) to not naturally claim our wins with confidence.

Imposter syndrome

The primary reason I see women struggling to confidently take the win is imposter syndrome. We start to feel as if we couldn’t possibly be the reason for the success or we messed up somewhere and someone may find out. I’m going to tell you something. I need to remind myself of it too from time to time. You did make a mistake along the way, and someone probably will find out. Even with that, you’re probably a primary driver in the success. If you make an entire Thanksgiving meal and you’re worried the turkey is dry. You don’t have to say it when someone compliments you. Yes, it probably could be juicier, and they will notice. However, you made Thanksgiving dinner. Thats fantastic. Take the compliments and move on.

Sharing credit

Another reason people struggle to celebrate their wins and take the praise is that they want to give credit where it is due. It may not be lack of confidence like with imposter syndrome but not wanting to take credit for other’s work. Problem is that we seem to forget that some of that credit is due to us. In keeping with our Thanksgiving example, imagine you made everything but the stuffing. Someone compliments your dinner, and you immediately call out that you didn’t make the stuffing. This is similar to getting the compliment on your clothes and immediately saying you got it on sale. It’s wonderful to share credit but keep in mind, you bring an awful lot to that table (figuratively and literally in our example) and deserve the compliment. You can follow it with a compliment to Suzie’s stuffing, after you acknowledge that you did great on dinner. Taking credit for your work doesn’t discredit someone else.

The story of the new job

Years ago, I was in a not so unique situation where a leader in the organization I was working in essentially told me I had great potential but was too small of a fish in the pond to get noticed. He suggested that I look to transfer to another office, in another city or state, for more opportunity. I had no intention of moving so with this great potential I updated my resume and looked elsewhere. Within a few weeks I found a position that looked like my dream job. It was in the same industry I was working in at the time and allowed me to use my skills developed in my previous roles. The key difference in this role was that it was working on the business, rather than in it.

I craved the chance to make meaningful changes to how work gets done to make life better for those doing the work. For this job I did a phone interview, an in-person interview, another phone interview to discuss a project-based interview, the project, and a group interview to discuss my work on this project. It was intense. I answered probably 100 questions from 4 different men. I put hours into the project. During the group interview I realized I’d only received half the data needed to complete the project. My analysis and recommendation was based on incomplete information. A couple of weeks later I got the call. The hiring manager called to offer me the job with essentially double my salary. My only question was when do I start?!

Then the fear set in.

If you think I went home, popped a bottle of wine, and celebrated getting the exact job I wanted, closer to home, with double the salary, you’re dead wrong. I cried. What if they found out I hadn’t done that work before? Do they know that I only worked on projects before? I didn’t lead them. Would they realize I hadn’t had experience in all the aspects of the work, only a few? Objectively, this was silly. Of course, they knew all of that. It was all clear in my resume and in the questions I answered. At the time though that didn’t matter. I think I cried almost every night of my 3-week notice. Then the night before my first day, look out! That was real irrational fear. I worried no one would like me and I’d get lost. (Where was I getting lost? I don’t know.)

Did I ever take the win?

My first days on the job were absolutely great. The team was incredible. Such a fun group of knowledgeable and effective people. I did actually get lost at work trying to find rooms in other wings of the building. So that was interesting. There were lots of people who didn’t like me and thought I was unqualified for the job. That went on for months honestly. It just wasn’t as devastating as I had made it out to be in my head.

True to my style, I celebrated the win of getting this new dream job about 3 months in to working it. I reflected back on where I was and how far I’d come in the past few years to take me to that first day. Then how much I’d grown in those few short months.

You can take that win too.

My intention this week isn’t to give you 5 steps to improve your ability to celebrate the win. It is to give you comfort in knowing it’s OK that it’s hard. It’s OK that you’re uncomfortable taking the compliment or celebrating your accomplishments. But also that it’s possible to start celebrating all you bring to the table and all that is being worked in your favor. You don’t have to just stay stuck in imposter syndrome or put other’s so far ahead of yourself that you’re literally left behind.

Over the years I’ve gotten better about celebrating the wins. Even celebrating in real time often. Sometimes it’s painful and awkward. Other times it comes more naturally now with practice. There are even times where I celebrate a win that I can’t see yet knowing full well it’s all being worked for my good in the end. When you look at it like that, what’s not worth celebrating?