On Documenting Your Wins

This Week’s Topic: The Victory Log

1 Strategy 🎯 

During a recent meeting with my business coach, I found myself in a major funk.

I’d spent the prior week working very hard on a project that did not turn out the way I hoped it would.

While I fancy myself a fairly positive and confident person, I was neither confident nor positive during this particular coaching session.

Picking up on my negative attitude, my coach challenged me to reflect on a recent situation that I was proud of, and where I’d made a positive impact.

But because I was hyper-focused on my failed project, I found myself struggling to bring to mind ANY wins over the past few weeks.

If you can relate to this experience, you know how demoralizing it can be to find yourself trapped in such a negative headspace.

Thankfully, I have gameplan for when this happens.

I consult my Victory Log (which I maintain in Microsoft OneNote.)

A Victory Log is the document where you - you guessed it - log your victories.

I started doing this regularly 12 months ago at the recommendation of a business coach. Adopting this practice has been game-changing for me professionally and personally, and it’s become a go-to strategy for helping clients who are struggling with negative thought patterns, imposter syndrome, or just general malaise.

My motivation for writing this newsletter is to inspire you to start doing it too.

It’s a powerfully simple practice that can help you enhance self-esteem, boost motivation, and gain perspective.  

Keeping a running tab of your successes can also serve as a valuable resource to help you better prepare for performance review conversations with your manager.

Below are a few best practices to help you get the most out of this leadership development strategy:

🏆Focus on YOUR Impact: 

Your Victory Log isn’t a collection of good things that have happened to you. It’s a collection of good things that have happened because of you.

📅Schedule It:

Even though it only takes a few minutes to reflect on and document a recent success, the odds of it becoming a habit are slim-to-none if it isn’t on the calendar.

Personally, I prefer to update my Victory Log first thing Monday morning to help me start my week from a place of confidence. But I have a client who updates their log on Friday afternoon. It doesn’t matter so much when you do it, only that you do it consistently.

📸Show Don’t Tell: 

Your Victory Log entries will frequently show up in the form of positive feedback from a client, colleague or manager. Rather than paraphrasing this positive feedback, I find that putting a screenshot of the raw feedback in your Victory Log can make it more visually engaging and more fun to refer to back to in the future.

Keep in mind, these are the strategies that have worked for me and a handful of clients. Your mileage may vary, and you may need to experiment a bit to find the system that works best for you.

And as you embark on this journey of documenting your wins, remember that your Victory Log is more than just a document - it’s a mindset shift.

By focusing on your achievements and the impact you’ve made, you’ll find it easier to maintain a positive outlook, even when faced with challenges.

Whether you choose to update your log weekly or daily, the key is consistency. Try it out and experience first-hand the transformative impact it can have on your life and career!

Did this week’s topic resonate with you? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know!

Have a victorious week and I’ll see you next Wednesday,

Darin 

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