I Am Proud of Me!

This year, 2020, has been a year most of us have never seen. While there is enough I can celebrate, it would be remiss of me not to pause and reflect on the many families who had an empty chair at the dining table this Holiday Season.

If the pandemic didn’t hit us directly, we knew someone who was affected. I lost a family member to the COVID19 virus. He contracted it after being hospitalized with a stroke. I last saw him when I visited Jamaica in June 2019 and I spoke with him just three weeks before his stroke. That was pretty close to home.

At the start of the year, I predicted it was the only year when we were all going to have 20/20 vision. We now know how that turned out. However, that shouldn’t negate the fact there were many moments when ‘you were proud of you’ and ‘I was proud of me’. As you read this, you might be saying to yourself “How narcissistic and me-centered can this woman get?” And I would counter that narcissism has its place.

Too often we feed our minds with negativity and wondering what people will say if we begin to ‘toot our own horns’ and holler out that “I Am Proud of Me!” We find it easier to relegate our accomplishments (our proud moments), to imposter syndrome status. We become friends with it, telling ourselves we are frauds; devaluing ourselves, feeling undeserving of our achievements, questioning our capability, wondering if we are the right person for the job, being afraid to speak up because of what others might say, looking behind our backs to see if we are the ones being called on to step forward. We hand over power to imposter syndrome rather than acknowledging our proud moments.

With 2021 only a few hours away, I won’t be predicting anything, but I want you to tell yourself how proud YOU are of YOU! Whether you had one achievement, or 100, start saying, “I am Proud of Me!”, and do it as many times as you can, until you believe it to your core. That’s one sure way to counter imposter syndrome as you move forward.

What have been my Proud Moments?

Turned Lemons into Lemonade. One of the lemons thrown at me was when I was zoom-bombed with pornography and racist tirades during a webinar. I could have left it up to ignorance of the perpetrator(s), but it fired me up to speak out and write about racism and social justice. It made me realize it is more powerful to speak up than to quietly resent. I also recognized that although not everyone will appreciate my truth, I have to speak it anyway because silence is complicit.

Honest Conversations Build Bridges. With all the mayhem that was going on with George Floyd’s murder and Black Lives Matter protests, performative statements by individuals and corporations were challenged and allyship became a verb in some quarters. Several people reached out to me to ask how I was feeling and to have deep, genuine conversations.

Professional Development. On the professional development level, I had registered to attend Career Thought Leaders’ in-person conference in Philadelphia, but because of the pandemic, it was cancelled. I made lemonade from that the situation and signed up for their Certified Career Transition Coach program.

Living, Learning and Working. Career Professionals of Canada is an organization that thrives on innovation in the career space. I volunteered to be part of the review and beta-testing of its epic Work-Life Strategist program.

As career coaches, we tend to look at our clients through the lens of job search and/or career change, but how often do we take the whole person into consideration? This Work-Life Strategist program helps career practitioners do that from the perspective of: Living (Self-care & Happiness), Learning (Life-Long Learning), and Working (Workplace Well-being).

As part of the cohort of careerpros who took part in the beta-test, and the calibre of their contributions, I know I gained far more than I offered. Pleased to have been a part of this pioneering program and to earn the Certified Work-Life Strategist designation.

For the third time, I was awarded Outstanding Canadian Career Leader by my peers at Career Professionals of Canada.

Thanks to career and job search icon, Alison Doyle, I was introduced to The Balance Careers, where I have been contributing articles on diversity and inclusion. My latest article is How to Appreciate Diversity During the Holidays.

And, the highlight of my year and very near and dear to my heart are the 20 women who jumped on the 2020 Let’s GROW Project bandwagon, and wrote the anthology, 21 Resilient Women: Stories of Courage, Growth, and Transformation. A few days after publication, it became an Amazon #1 in Motivational and Self-Help and Women’s Biographies categories! How epic is that? #IAmProudofMe!

How about you? Were there times when you felt like shouting “I Am Proud of Me!”, and you didn’t because imposter syndrome reared its head, or you feared people would think you had gone crazy?

We have been conditioned to believe that we should not talk about our proud moments because we will be seen as narcissistic, conceited and egocentric. As a career coach, I always encourage clients to be proud of their achievements and make sure to talk about them in interviews. I should heed my own advice, and so should you.

One client told me once that she did not realize the contributions she had made to her company until she saw her accomplishments summarized in her boss’ LinkedIn Profile. She was a spectator at her own career game, but that discovery led her to start capturing her accomplishments.

Let 2021 be the year, you leave imposter syndrome behind and embrace your proud moments. If you don’t toot your own horn, no one will know you are coming; It’s time to give a shoutout to yourself and say “I am Proud of Me!”

By the way, I am getting ready for the virtual edition of the Let’s GROW Project under the theme: Visioning 2021 – #GettingItDone. It’s happening on International Vision Board Day!

Save the date: January 9, 2021, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm Eastern.

Watch this space for details. Or, if you cannot wait, send me a message.

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About Me: Other than being the Chief Encouragement Officer at The Wright Career Solution, I am a certified career management coach and certified career development practitioner helping clients find satisfying careers and get hired FASTER! I specialize in career transition coaching, professional resume writing, interview coaching, and LinkedIn Profile development. Connect with me here on LinkedIn, Twitter at @CareerTips2Go, or Instagram at daisywright_careercoach.

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