Getting Prolific, Day 10: Keep All Your Accomplishments Visible

How do you saturate your consciousness with confidence?

Most professionals don’t dust off their resume if they aren’t actively seeking a new opportunity.

They’re too focused on managing their day to day work to step back and reflect on key career milestones.

But one of the upsides of doing so periodically is making sure you don’t lose track of your accomplishments.

Because that’s all a resume is. The term derives from the word meaning summary.

Matter of fact, can you guess who is credited with inventing the very first resume?

Davinci, of course, the original renaissance man. Back in the fourteen hundreds, he wrote a summary letter to a potential employer outlining his seemingly endless engineering talents.

Leonardo’s resume was this simple, ten point list of his scientific and artistic abilities. And the political figure to whom it was sent ultimately commissioned the great polymath to create one of the most legendary paintings in history.

Do you keep all your accomplishments visible? If not, then you’re missing out on a powerful and renewable and free source of motivation. Both individually and organizationally.

Because it’s very easy to forget the things we’re so proud of. Or, even if we do remember our victories, we don’t keep them top of mind. Partly because we want to keep moving things forward, but also because pride has become so culturally condemned these days, most of us are afraid of celebrating our successes.

We think the documentation and celebration of our wins will be seen as form of bragging or fishing for praise.

But you have to think about it from a semiotic standpoint.

Consider the symbolic capital of your achievement. When you surround yourself or your team with concrete evidence of past execution, it keeps your goals in your field of vision, raises the psychic effectiveness of the workplace and makes you hopeful for what is to come.

Whether it’s your resume, your departmental shipping record, a habit tracker, your own private victory log or some other digital artifact, the visual record of progress saturates your consciousness with confidence.

That’s worth its weight in gold.

I’ve learned this lesson in my work at startups as head of content. Because to me, that word has a double meaning.

Content as in, all the things we create, but also content as in, all the fulfillment we feel. And especially with that second definition, a key part of my position has been making sure the team doesn’t lose track of our accomplishments.

It’s one reason why sending a weekly internal newsletter is so important. My coworkers may not read every word, or even read the damn thing at all.

But it always shows up. Only takes me about ten minutes to write. And each issue calls out all the wins, milestones and other key team moments that might otherwise have gotten lost in the shuffle.

At the very least, this little piece of content fills me with a sense of contentment.

Isn’t it cool how that works?

Look, whether you’re working individually or as part of a team, the days and weeks can become a blur. Sometimes the victories fall by the wayside.

Make sure you’re taking time to recognize and celebrate the full scope of your accomplishments.

In this life where almost everyone is seeking the same two goals, connection and contribution, dusting off the old resume is a meaningful use of your time.

How are you summarizing the tangible measure of the value you create?

Subscribe to getprolific.io and get daily how-to articles and email inspiration on how to beat writer’s block, plus 300+ proven creativity tools. Beat writer’s block for only $12/month!