Amanda Setili* says in the day-to-day rush, minor accomplishments often go unrecognised, yet they are the building blocks of much better things.
When one of my executive coaching clients first came to me, he was having difficulty being taken seriously by top leadership and was perceived as being more tactical than strategic.
A few years have passed, and things have changed dramatically. Now he’s killing it.
People are listening to him and he’s part of every major decision his organisation makes.
However, until I brought up the subject of how far he’s come, this wasn’t entirely clear to him. He still has days when it feels like an uphill battle.
Work never ends, and thus it can be difficult to find the time and energy to stop and tell yourself — or the people around you — that you have made spectacular progress.
I have a consulting client that has spent two years addressing the fact that their customer service teams were a bit disgruntled and cynical.
Team members were not really putting their hearts into their work because they felt as though their systems and processes were broken.
Today, things are different. The systems are far more robust.
There’s a new camaraderie, and people are fired up about serving the clients.
However, since these changes happened over a two-year period, it’s been easy to miss them.
These are the moments that deserve your attention. Don’t let them pass by unnoticed. Give yourself and others credit.
Set time aside to recognise and celebrate such improvements.
In my own life, I recognise that many times when I reach higher, it often feels difficult… but once I succeed, it feels so routine that I fail to give myself credit.
I say “well, anyone could have done that…”, rather than “wow — I thought I would never be able to accomplish that, but now I have!”
Migrating a task from challenging to routine is a major accomplishment; you should act that way.
*Amanda Setili helps successful leaders and their teams agree on what needs to change and how to make it happen. She is author of Fearless Growth: The New Rules to Stay Competitive, Foster Innovation, and Dominate Your Markets. Amanda can be contacted at setili.com.
This article first appeared at setili.com.
