Who hasn’t looked back on the year and thought, man, what did I even do this year? You know you were busy, you know you were stressed, but you can’t actually list even a handful of accomplishments that you completed in the past 12 months. Some of us have done that often enough that we stop trying to look for them all together. It is easier on our brain and our ego quite honestly, if we just make a new goal, put in some effort and move on. If we dare reflect back and ask, did I make progress?, we are sure we’ll be disappointed. I did this very thing years ago. It was the year I was promoted to formally lead leaders in corporate and looking back now, I can see that I accomplished a ton that year. At the time, I was sure I did nothing and impacted no one. (Would you rather get this in video form? Click here for the YouTube version!)
Did I make progress? Why couldn’t I see it?
The year I was promoted I implemented a new way of measuring success. My team grew, uniting whole groups of people who had never worked together before. I built trust and engagement with multiple levels of employees and leaders. We implemented new compliance processes to meet stringent expectations. We created collaborative efficient processes that united teams in different locations. And that is just what I can remember all these years later. Yet at the time, it felt like nothing was done. It wasn’t because of some major life moment that snuck in and stole my time or focus on some outside factor threw me off course. It was because of me.
Wait, its my fault?
We don’t want to believe we’re doing something to negatively impact ourselves. It must be someone, or something, else’s fault. If I was left to my own devices I’d achieve all of my goals no problem, and I’d take adequate credit for them too. The fact is though, we’re typically our own biggest road block. It is us throwing up our own self sabotage that keeps us from hitting our goals. For me, it was cognitive dissonance. (If you’re curious if this is you, click here and take the quiz!)
Let me break down what that means. Cognitive dissonance is having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. That means that even though you might be doing the work, you don’t feel like you deserve credit so you dismiss it. I couldn’t relate to anything that I was achieving so I assumed it was either by fluke or by someone else’s doing that it worked. For me, there was a very specific reason for this, someone made a comment that I couldn’t let go of.
She wears a short skirt and gets what she wants
Let me set the stage, that promotion I told you about, it happened very early in the year and there were many other internal candidates. To make matters worse, many of those candidates were on the teams that through the promotion, now reported to me. That meant that at least 5 people who were directly reporting to me had tried to get the job I was in. It is no wonder that one of them started telling people the reason I was promoted was based on how I look. Her direct quote about me, “She just puts on a short skirt and gets anything she wants.”
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com
It was a lie, but I still worried
That couldn’t have been further from the truth. I worked my tail off, regardless of my outfit, to make things better for the employees and the customers. I am naturally charismatic and was much younger than many of my now peers. Did those things work in my favor as I tried to persuade those peers and our senior leaders? Yes, probably just as often as they worked against me to be honest. Even though I knew the comment wasn’t true, I still second guessed any success I had. I always wondered if my success was built on a house of cards, or if anyone else might have perceived it that way. By the end of the year, it was as though every accomplishment had that stain on it. I had spent 10 months working tirelessly and then questioning everything.
My thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes related to the decisions and actions I was taking were so misaligned. It was as though the two sides of my brain were pulling themselves apart. The promotion I got must not have been earned. All of those processes I improved must have been a waste of time. The compliance changes I spearheaded, those must have just been lucky they worked. It couldn’t have been me because all I have to go off of is my looks.
And why is this SELF sabotage?
This is just my example of how I was sabotaging myself, because no, it wasn’t that person who made the comment’s fault. Should she have said that, probably not. However, it wasn’t her that was holding me back. I was holding myself back as I gave so much power, so much air time to this comment and allowed it to fester in my mind while I used it to erode all of my good work. That was how I sabotaged myself.
My story might not be yours. You might be stuck between being grateful for where you are, and your potential for what you could be. You might be so overwhelmed by everything that needs to get done that you focus on the tiniest detail. Something you know you have complete control of. Maybe you have so many balls in the air it’s unrealistic to think you could catch any of them. Or maybe it is something completely different.
The truth is, it is not the person, the circumstances, or problem that sabotages your progress. It is your response. Just like I responded to the issue with that employee by letting the thought fester. You might be procrastinating the important work and prioritizing something trivial. You might be agreeing to take on everything knowing it gives you an excuse for nothing to be done well. Now, you can move that hurdle and be proud of the progress you’ve made this year, and every year to follow. The first step in feeling that pride is figuring out what is holding you back. Take this 2 minute quiz to find your personal brand of self-sabotage and what you can do about it.
How do we confidently answer the, did I make progress?, question?
Once you’ve identified what self-sabotage is holding you back, you have a clear sense of the obstacle that has been standing in your way. Then, you’re able to see what you accomplished for what it is, a testament to your hard work, determination, skills, and strengths. The best way to see it is to list them out. If you’ve been following along, to make your mark in 2025, you already have a small list of wins over the past week. Once you’ve worked that muscle a bit, you can go further back than listing them in the moment, here’s how.
- Audit your calendar. Start in the beginning of the year and look for meetings, time blocks, and task lists that would indicate what you were working on. Even if you’re not listing them as ‘wins’ or ‘brags’ yet, make a list of projects and work that you were doing.
- Compare it to your list of goals. Take out that goal list from early in the year or even the organization strategic plan. Start drawing lines from what you worked on to the goals you, or your organization, set out to achieve.
- Rewrite the wins. For all of that work that supported a goal or strategic initiative, rewrite the work you did as a win. So rather than simply stating what you did, add the value it added to you or the organization.
Still not confident in your progress? Try this.
Do the first two steps and when you get to your brag list, there’s a twist. Make a brag list of all of your accomplishments and put someone else’s name at the top. Then read it, out loud. I don’t care if you read it to your bestie or your bathroom mirror. Read the list of accomplishments out loud, in the third person, as though you’re talking about a close and respected colleague. If I was going to rewrite mine for you right now it would go a little something like this:
Molly was so good at what she did she was promoted straight into middle management while she was still in her 20s. Most people are still just figuring out what they want to do but she was out there making such big strides that she created her own dream job.
Would I have said any of that about myself? Not a chance. But bragging up this fictitious person helped me see what I’d achieved and how much potential I had yet to share with the world. That cognitive dissonance still gets me from time to time. If I’m honest I still feel like I have a foot in both camps of owning my success and second guessing each move. Now though, I get to use this practice each and every time. I get to see what ‘she’ would do, how ‘she’ would describe it and I can step into that identity fully.
What is holding you back from recognizing your achievements?
Maybe you aren’t stuck in cognitive dissonance. Your personal brand of self-sabotage could be entirely different. It might be the exact reason you don’t have as many achievements to list as you’d like. Do yourself a favor and take the quiz to determine your personal brand of self-sabotage. There is only one way to get out of your own way and that is to recognize that it’s you standing there.