When you no longer recognize the power of your work.
Has someone ever written an article or post about you? Maybe in a newspaper, a LinkedIn post, or a recommendation? I don’t know about you, but when someone writes about me, I always wonder who they’re talking about. My first response is always, “I did that?”
While that’s a natural response, it also demonstrates how detached I am from the power of my work. And that is not good for me or my work.
I witness this with every single one of my clients. I’ll point out the power inherent in their work and they react as if it was nothing. As Laura, a long-time client shared on LinkedIn,
One of the biggest things I have learned from working with [Becky] is how to stop minimizing the things that came naturally to me — leading teams, solving problems, navigating difficult situations, building relationships, creating structure, and driving results. So many of us move from one challenge to the next without ever stopping to realize how much we have actually accomplished along the way.
Like Laura says, it takes help to stop minimizing our achievements. I do that as a coach, and I’ve found that AI does something similar for my clients’ résumés. But, I keep seeing women with strong résumés stall after the screening interview.
Pretty sure I’ve figured out why.
As I worked through a résumé review (one drafted by AI) with a client, I noticed her holding her achievements at arm’s length. I could tell by the way she answered my questions that she didn’t own the elevated positioning in her résumé — even though it was correct. The language in the résumé lived outside of her instead of inside. As we worked through the résumé, she began using some of the strategic language around her work. She began to own that powerful picture of her work.
A couple of weeks later, as she entered the room for an Atlanta Women in AI meeting, she grabbed me in a hug and shared that she had used her original résumé (the one with the elevated positioning) and was getting better results because she was more confident in describing her work during interviews. I could see that reclaimed confidence reflected in the way she entered the room.
Confidence.
Confidence is one of my favorite attributes (and one of the most misunderstood). I particularly love this definition: “Confidence occurs when the insidious self-perception that you aren’t able is trumped by the stark reality of your achievements” (from The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman).
“…the stark reality of your achievements.” I’ll bet every one of my clients can recite that definition because I’ve been known to flash it on the screen when they’re dismissing the power of their work. The truth is once we shut down that insidious voice that says what we did was easy and anyone could do it, we begin to own our accomplishments and claim the foundation we’ve built for our careers.
After the résumé review session, I realized I needed to help clients approach their résumés differently. So I created a ½ day in person workshop around just that: From Overwhelmed to Own Your Way. More than a résumé workshop. A homecoming.
Come back home to yourself.
In the workshop you reclaim the career foundations you’ve carefully constructed, discover language that reflects the full power of your work, and make sure you own every word — including the positioning AI surfaces for you — so it lands in your body and your interviews.
The work we do in the workshop? It’s calling you home to yourself. It’s remembering that the powerful story someone else tells about you — the one that makes you say “I did that?” — is the truest version of you.
That version of you has been there the whole time, sitting on the foundation you built. You just need someone to help you reclaim it.
If you’re ready to own that story, I’d love to see you at the in-person workshop.
Not your thing? I’d appreciate it if you shared this post with someone who might need this exact help. Thank you!
Never Settle,
Becky