Celebrating Accomplishments: The Importance of Recognizing the Process
I’m willing to guess that, if you’re reading this, you have some motivation around achieving accomplishments. This could play out in and out of work, large-scale or small.
You’re motivated to achieve accomplishments because we’ve been achieving them since kindergarten graduation. Our accomplishments serve as certain markers to let us know that our efforts are not in vain. We are making a mark on the world, our work, or maybe just our to-do list today.
A recent Untapped Leadership newsletter asked:
What is a significant accomplishment you've achieved in the past year/month/week? What did it require of you to get there? How can you let others know about that journey?
What is a micro-accomplishment you achieved today? What did it require of you to get there? How can you let others know about that journey?
In the Untapped Leaders Community, we are taking a moment to name and celebrate our accomplishments this week. When we celebrate what we’ve accomplished, the world typically sees the bright, shiny outcome at the end. But what if we gave the same level of fanfare to the tough, messy challenge that it takes to get there?
One Untapped Leader in the community celebrated having keynoted 3 STEM conferences recently — an incredible accomplishment! What she also named was, in order to get there, she had to navigate around a discouraging manager who sought to dim her light.
Another Untapped Leader celebrated receiving additional staff support from her CEO due to a conversation she initiated. Behind that accomplishment were this Untapped Leader’s overstretched juggling of responsibilities and tireless efforts to operate within a “lean” culture.
One of the primary tenets of Untapped Leadership is exposing and spotlighting what is commonly overlooked. In getting to the visible outcomes and shiny accomplishments, we tend to gloss over the less notable yet equally essential accomplishments that are inherent in the process. Moments in that process are often markers that uncover our untapped leadership— how we lead for ourselves, our organizations, and our missions that do not typically come with the accolades.
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