For a long time, I thought I had read about pretty much everything successful people did daily, from using a to-do list and eating a healthy breakfast, to exercising and reading every single day. I didn’t realise there was one important thing that was not just career changing, but also life-changing —recording your wins every day! I eventually came across the concept in the form of the success log.
Success logging simply means writing down your successes daily, regardless of how big or small. When reviewing our day or week, we tend to dwell on our mistakes and what we could have done better. What about what you can do and have done right? It’s part of critical assessment too.
We often get so lost in being busy and even being productive we forget that investing in ourselves and our personal brand comes before any job. Success journaling is the one personal branding habit we should never be too busy for. Nobody can pay closer attention to your awesomeness than you.
Start a success journal today. Notice your daily victories. Congratulate and celebrate yourself. Acknowledge your greatness. Yes, you!
Even the victories that appear small matter. It’s not always about giving a killer presentation or closing a huge sale. Meeting a tight deadline, staying calm under pressure, preparing that meal for the first time without the recipe in front of you (or preparing it for 10 people instead of just two), jogging 6 miles instead of 5 … it all counts.
Record what you achieve each day and also write down how it made you feel. Recording your successes not only keeps your enthusiasm and confidence high, it helps you chart your growth and progress and see how far you’ve come. Apart from being an effective mood brightener when you’re having a bad day, it provides positive reinforcement all year round.
The more you record your successes, the more you see how much you’ve grown as a person. Your success log also helps you measure your strengths and enables you to use your past achievements as a launching pad for greater ones.
It’s also an extremely valuable tool when it comes time for weekly progress meetings or annual appraisal. With a success log, you’re poised to take advantage of these rare occasions where it’s perfectly okay (and even expected) to blow your own trumpet. Instead of filling the conversation with “err”, “emm” and “you know”, you’ll be able to talk about all the customers you made happy, the times you saved the company money, the valuable clients you brought in, and all the other achievements you have at the tip of your fingers, thanks to your success log. Shine bright like a diamond!
I dare you to keep a success log for half a year, or even just a month, without your life being transformed significantly. The greatness in you will become clearer and clearer, and you’ll see yourself as you truly are, which will, in turn, affect the way you present yourself and ultimately the way others see you.