“I Tied My Shoes” and Other Unnecessary Self Promotions

You don’t deserve praise for doing your job. You get a paycheck.

Picture a five-year-old kid who comes to you really proud that they tied their shoes. Sure, they might be sloppy little bunny ears, but this kid is really excited and proud of their new skill and you encourage them for their great work. Now picture a colleague telling you about how this morning before they left the house, they pulled off the classic loop, swoop, and pull. Boom. Shoes tied before driving into work. Pride achieved.

It feels a whole lot different, and extremely sarcastic. You just expect your colleagues to be able to tie their shoes, and you don’t need to hear about it when they do. In fact, by the time that five-year-old is pushing eight or nine you just expect that they’ll continue to tie their shoes - it gets really weird if your adult colleague is really proud about this sort of thing. Why would it be any different when you do your job?

Congratulations, you’ve shown up and done what your employer is paying you for. That’s not cause for celebration - it’s the reason they hired you to begin with, and it’s the reason they’re not considering firing you. It’s not cause for promotion, and it’s not cause for self promotion. You will notice some colleagues that celebrate simply doing their job. Don’t be one of them.

If you’re working hard and solving hard problems, it will pay off. This goes back to focusing on what you can control. You can control how you show up to work, and you can control how much you shine the spotlight on what you’re doing day in and day out. This isn’t to say that there are no occasions worthy of self promotion, simply that meeting the expectations of your job isn’t one of them.

Here’s the biggest problem with doing it: You’re putting a magnifying glass on the work you’re doing every day.

Digging a little deeper into this, your boss expects you to do your job simply due to the nature of employing you. They had a need, posted a job for which you’ve applied and interviewed, and now they’re paying you what you agreed upon to do that job. You expect a child heading into middle school to be able to tie their shoes the same way you expect your colleagues or employees to do their jobs.

Most managers are understanding that things aren’t always going to go perfectly. Mistakes are acknowledged, learned from, and left in the past. At least, if you’re not shining a big spotlight on your performance.

What happens if you normally share a weekly update to your manager and colleagues about how you’re meeting expectations and you have a hard week or two? You’re setting yourself up to be challenged for what would otherwise be a non-issue. One of the most important parts of achieving long-term success is constant growth, and I subscribe to the notion that you should be able to grow a little bit every week…but you’re not going to have a great week every week. Your uncle’s cat might be sick, or something much more meaningful (sorry, Leo) might be happening in your life that causes you to be distracted at work and not achieve even your usual mediocrity.

Human nature means we might be really consistent most of the time, and we might be growing a little bit nearly every week - but you will hit a stretch of plateau. You might hit a really hard problem that temporarily stumps you. For someone that communicates well and focuses on more than their meeting of weekly expectations, this is not a problem. For someone that’s consistently sharing each and every thing that they do, this creates a feeling that now you might not even be meeting those basic expectations and you’ve created a problem for yourself where one doesn’t really exist.

Do everything you can to show up, work hard, and deliver strong results. Write down those results, but don’t broadcast them. A lot of things happen between reviews…and even with the best memory, you won’t remember every important thing that you do. If you’re effectively communicating, your manager should be aware of most, if not all, of your major accomplishments - but what happens if your manager leaves the company or finds a new role within the company and isn’t delivering your performance review? It’s really helpful to have some notes on those major accomplishments.

Don’t be the person that’s bragging about tying your shoes. Your colleagues expect it of you. Your boss expects it of you. It comes across much worse than you think.