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Appreciating Your Work
Before you can write your Achievement Stories, you need to appreciate your achievements. You cannot take your work for granted.
Malcolm Forbes, Forbes’ magazine’s late publisher, said:
Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.
What usually happens is that if we do something, it seems commonplace, not special, just ordinary. However, when we see someone doing something we cannot do, we’re impressed.
What we’re not considering is whether the person who impressed you can do what you can do.
We’re also not asking ourselves:
“Why did you keep your job so long?”
“Why did you get raises?”
“Why did you get promoted?”
“Why did you receive those awards?”
“Why did you get recognized as often as you did, via awards or complementary messages from your boss and others?”
If you’re not getting raises, promotions, awards or complements, there could be a number of reasons. It might be that your company cannot afford to provide raises and promotions. It’s possible that a boss may think that if you get awards and compliments, you’ll ask for a raise, which her budget doesn’t permit.
Unfortunately, there are also times when a boss may not want to draw attention to you because she’s afraid of you, afraid you’ll outshine her, afraid you’ll get her job.
Of course, you need to be careful around someone like this.
I once gave a presentation to a group of people, including my boss and her boss. After the presentation, my boss’s boss said it was excellent. All my boss did was look at me for what seemed like a long time. As long as she worked there, she never let me give another presentation.
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