Creative Pep Talk #103: Celebrate Your Wins

Building on my conversation with Amber Petty last week: I look at how and why you should give yourself credit for accomplishments in this short episode.

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Transcript: Celebrate Your Wins

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:00]:
Foreign.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity, Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:19]:
Hey, everybody. This is Nancy Norbeck with this week’s Creative Pep Talk. And, you know, last week on the podcast, I talked to Amber Petty, and we talked a lot about building creative courage and dealing with feedback. And, you know, one of the things that has stuck with me is the idea of how easily we diminish our own accomplishments. It’s not just that we don’t give ourselves credit for them. It’s that we actively downplay the things that we’ve achieved. How crazy is that? Right? Amber talked about, you know, downplaying the fact that she wrote an article that went into the New York Times. How many of you, you know, would say that that’s a small thing? And yet if it’s us, it’s so easy to be like, oh, it’s not a big deal, right? Especially for women, because women are always kind of socialized to see ourselves as not a big deal and not to take credit for our accomplishments.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:17]:
And, you know, it’s really crazy. I think that we need to build a culture of being okay with taking appropriate credit, not downplaying what we achieve and saying, hey, you know what? I got an article in the New York Times, and that’s pretty awesome. It’s a pretty big deal. Doesn’t happen for everybody. And. And that’s cool. I’m. I’m allowed to, like, shout it from the mountaintops, to put it up on social media and say, you guys, I have this piece in the New York Times this week, and you should go read it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:52]:
And here’s why that may feel really, really strange to you if it’s not something that you’re used to doing. It may feel downright dangerous if you’re not used to doing it. But that’s an even better reason to play around with the idea of, you know, hey, maybe. Maybe this is something I need to build up in myself. Maybe this is something that I need to get better at, be okay with. Because, you know, there are things that we all do that are worthy of praise, that are worthy of credit, and it’s okay to be happy about them, to feel good about them, not just to take a compliment about them, though. That’s important, too, but to be okay enough to say, yeah, I did this awesome thing, and not feel like we’re being proud or being a braggart or being selfish. Selfish about it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:53]:
We’re just being honest about it. We’re being honest about our own accomplishments. If we can’t be honest about our own accomplishments, can we really be honest about praising the accomplishments of others? I’m not sure we really can, because if we can’t be honest about our own accomplishments, we’re probably not coming from a great place when we praise others. Something to think about what have you accomplished that you haven’t been appropriately willing to own and take credit for and say, hey, yeah, I did this awesome thing. See if you can write a couple of them down, maybe stick them on your mirror or stick them on the fridge and look at them every day until you start to feel okay saying, hey, yeah, I did that thing and it was awesome. And you know what? I’m proud of myself. Not in a big, you know, I’m the king of the world kind of way, but just in an honest way. I’m proud of myself.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:49]:
I did a good thing, and that’s worthy of praise. That’s worthy of me being able to say, I did this thing. Go me. And then to the next person who does it, go, you. It’s not that hard, right? But you can do it. Give it a try. See what happens. Let me know and I’ll see you next time.

Nancy Norbeck [00:04:12]:
If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the Spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free, and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.