Are you uncomfortable talking about your accomplishments?

If you said “yes”, you’re not alone. Here are some facts:

• 84% of women say they are “uncomfortable” talking about themselves
• We often give more credit to our teammates than to ourselves
• We underrate our performance by 33% on average

Unfortunately, in an environment that is moving as quickly as ours is, it’s nearly impossible for managers to accurately track the contributions of everyone on their team, especially without help from the team members themselves. In other words, some degree of self-promotion is necessary to get credit for your wins.

How can you do this easily? With a formula, of course!

Your action + its positive impact on others (e.g., clients, vendors, your team, your employer, etc.)

To borrow from a clean tech client of ours, here are a few examples:

What I did:	Its impact on others:
Rolled out a process improvement that…	… raised employee satisfaction scores by 8%
Received a project permit that…	… enabled us to start one of our largest projects on time and within budget

And a few phrases you may find helpful:

• “Took your advice to (action), and it resulted in (impact). Thank you.”
• “Wanted to follow back up on our discussion about (topic). After we talked, I (action) and now (impact).”
• “I am excited to talk with you about how this year is going. If you remember, the goals we set forth were (goals). I’m thrilled to share that (impact).”

This can be particularly powerful when tucked into an end of week email, which will ultimately feed your annual review.