Flip the Script: How to Stop Dismissing Your Own Success

Do you ever consider whether you let yourself be defined by what you don’t hear, more than by what you do hear?

Not quite sure what I mean? Let me explain.

During a conversation with my dad the other day, he asked me how many clients I was currently working with. When I told him, he immediately responded with, “Oh but don’t you want to be working with more than that?”, citing the specific goal I had set when I first started my coaching business a few years ago.

My immediate thought: He doesn’t think I’m doing well enough in my business.

But when I took a moment to examine our conversation, I realized he didn’t actually say that.

What had happened is that my sneaky brain had seized the void in the conversation and used it to undermine my confidence about the success I was having in my business.

When I realized that, I remembered that just a few weeks ago, my dad had in fact sent me a message saying how proud he was of all my accomplishments. Take that, sneaky brain!

But it’s not just me who has a sneaky brain. You have one too!

Us humans have brains that are hard-wired to keep us safe, which means they’re always scanning for threats. A threat might be a saber tooth tiger lurking outside your window, but it might also be the risk of failing to live up to the expectation of others. In evolutionary times this meant getting kicked out of your tribe, which was a death sentence because it pretty much guaranteed that you would get eaten by that tiger!

And so our brains are always finding sneaky ways to make us feel like we’re not good enough so that we’ll work a little harder to ensure we’re accepted. Acceptance equals survival.

The problem? This wiring keeps us hyper-focused on lack of recognition when it comes to our success and accomplishments. And strangely, it pushes us to discount the validation, encouragement, and support that we do receive.

Take my client, Jessica. She’s been absolutely crushing it at work lately. Through her leadership role, she’s revolutionized her team’s portfolio, built meaningful connections with senior leaders, and been invited to participate in several high-profile meetings and events that no other person in her role has been a part of to date. From the outside looking in, she’s making an unforgettable impact.

But her sneaky, protective brain is more attuned to using what she’s not hearing as evidence of her accomplishments. For example, she was at an event with her boss recently and her brain convinced her that he’d snubbed her. And she was devastated. That’s because she was allowing her brain to craft a story about what this lackluster interaction meant about her.

As we sifted through her feelings, I drew her attention to the list of times he had recognized her hard work. He had given her many shoutouts in rooms full of other people, as well as during one-on-one conversations between the two of them. Based on this evidence, there was no doubt that her boss thought highly of her.

Another client had a similar run-in with her sneaky brain recently. Maggie had just secured herself the PERFECT job. She was over the moon, but there was one sticking point—she hadn’t been brought in at the salary level she had requested.

And for weeks, she let the number on her paycheck define her worth. Not only that, whenever she saw the decision-maker in the office, she repeated a story to herself that because the decision-maker didn’t approve the salary increase, it meant that this person did not respect her experience.

There was one tiny flaw in this thinking. The decision-maker had recently nominated Maggie for a prestigious award—which she won. It’s no secret that the nomination form took a lot of time and thought to fill out.

Would someone who didn’t think highly of Maggie put in that kind of effort? Absolutely not.

It’s another example of how our sneaky brains fixate on what we’re not hearing to define our whole existence—if we let them that is. And when you do let your brain operate like this, you’re essentially seeking reasons to diminish yourself.

Do any of these examples feel a bit familiar? Do you also listen more for a lack of recognition, validation, and support than you do to what is actually being said or done?

If so, have a little laugh, and congratulate yourself for being normal. Remember, this is how we humans are hardwired. It’s supposed to help us survive!

While that might be so, you can rewire this default setting and stop filling in the silence with silly stories about how you suck. Instead, you can start reflecting on all the ways that you’re truly exceptional and start collecting the evidence to back this up so that you can refute the arguments of your sneaky brain whenever it decides to show up.

A simple way to do this is to create a Recognition Log that you can reflect on any time that sneaky brain starts feeding you nonsense. A Recognition Log is simply a list that you create that documents the times you’ve received a meaningful compliment, recognition, an award, support, or met a personal goal.

It’s a great way to begin to deliberately define yourself by all the ways that your impact has been noticed and why you’re exactly where you need to be.

Because here’s the thing—whatever you look for in life, be assured that you will get more of it. So, if you look for ways to diminish yourself, you will find them in every interaction and experience. But if you rewire your brain to seek out examples of where you’re thriving, you’ll get more of that!

The choice is yours. What will you choose?