You Did the Thing. Why Doesn’t It Feel Like It?
Overcoming the bias that erases your accomplishments.
"I tried creating a Reverse Bucket List, listing achievements and experiences I'm proud of. To my surprise, I struggled to come up with more than a few items. Even though I know I've accomplished things, I tend to minimize them or think 'that doesn't really count.' This exercise made me realize how rarely I acknowledge my own progress. How do you learn to recognize and celebrate your achievements when you've developed a habit of dismissing them? What helps you build a more accurate picture of your capabilities and growth?" -Achievement Skeptic
Dear Skeptic,
The fact that you struggled with the exercise doesn't mean you haven't achieved things—it means your brain is doing what brains do. This pattern is common, especially among people who are neurodivergent or just tend to be self-critical.
Our brains have negativity bias—we naturally focus more on what went wrong than what went right. Add to that the "moving goalposts" effect, where as soon as we accomplish something, we immediately raise the bar and dismiss what we just did as "not that impressive."
Here are three strategies that can help rebuild a more accurate picture of yourself:
Get More Specific
Vague achievements are much easier for your brain to dismiss. "I'm pretty good at my job" can be waved away easily. But "I successfully facilitated that tense meeting where everyone was frustrated, and by the end we had a clear action plan" is much harder to minimize.
Instead of "I've learned some things," try "I taught myself how to use that new software in two days, and now I'm the person others come to for help with it."
The more specific and detailed you get, the harder it becomes for your brain to dismiss these wins as "not real accomplishments."
Add Another Voice to the Conversation
When your dismissive voice says "that doesn't really count," practice adding a counter-voice that responds with specific evidence. This is similar to dealing with negative self-talk—you don't have to silence the critical voice, but you can balance it out.
When your brain says "Anyone could have done that," respond with "But not everyone did do it—I did." When it says "It wasn't that hard," try "Maybe it felt easy because I've developed skills that made it manageable."
This isn't about lying to yourself or being unrealistic. It's about giving equal weight to a more balanced perspective instead of letting the dismissive voice run the whole show.
The Friend Test
Ask yourself: "What would I tell a friend who had done the same things I've done?" We're often incredibly generous when assessing others' accomplishments but ruthlessly harsh on ourselves.
Even better, actually ask 2-3 people you trust: "What do you see as my biggest accomplishments or strengths?" You might be surprised by their answers. Many of us have blind spots about ourselves that others can see clearly.
What's one achievement from this past year that you've been dismissing?
We also live in a society where smaller accomplishments are not seen as noteworthy as big ones and there's also the comparison game. We need to deprogram and appreciate smaller accomplishments and that goes also for appreciating the little things in life. We want more and more and there's always dissatisfaction. Thank you for sharing!
In Internal Family Systems, inner critics are called manager protector parts.
These parts downplay achievements to protect us preemptively from things like:
— External criticism (who do you think you are?)
— Increasing expectations
— Becoming too arrogant
— Triggering deeper feelings of worthlessness (if I did this great thing, why do I still feel so bad… which might lead to uncovering the rabbit hole of bad feelings that lives underneath efforts to use achievements as a bandaid on top of the deeper wounds).
In the short run, countering managers’ criticisms with fairer self-appraisals helps balance out the internal dialogue and is a great, friendly, accessible step.
As is being very specific in describing your accomplishments so they’re harder for managers to downplay.
For instance , today I was continuing to work through the PTSD of being profoundly deprived of informed consent after surgery for a perforated appendix.
But I stopped to appreciate one specific thing: last year I made intense efforts to research the best policy when I changed my health insurance. I balanced my desire for a low monthly premium with a low deductible, and wow! That research paid off!
Although last year I never used insurance, the appendix apocalypse this year is tens of thousands of dollars— but my deductible isn’t going to break me. Way to, past me, for researching such a great policy!!
So I agree, specific and more balanced self-assessments can help create an internal environment where the critics’ voices don’t drown out all our other truths.
I don’t want to sound like I’m posting this to be an opposition to what you wrote Chris – because I love this — I just want to add one further step.
In Internal Family Systems it’s helpful to consider that the root cause of the criticism is the deeper parts of us — the exiles— our inner children — who carry negative feelings and beliefs from our past experiences.
No matter how much I try to drown out or balance out the voice of the critic, if there’s a very young part of me who constantly believes “I’m too much” because that’s the message it was pickled in as a child, it’s unlikely this deep message is going to stop emanating up from the basement of my subconscious just because I’m able to articulate the ways I did a great job today.
I love the idea of balancing out our inner critics.
I would add that the next step is to do the deeper healing work of going to the exiles and unraveling and unburdening their deep core negative beliefs.
And I agree that creating space in our inner world to hear not just the critics is a great and accessible way to begin to balance out their sometimes overwhelming energy.