Forced Humility

When something is hard to do, and you do it, admit that it was hard. Don’t force out a statement like “it was nothing” or undersell what you did.

For one, you deserve the rewards of your work. But even beyond that – don’t trap yourself.

Let’s say you sweat and grind and claw your way to success on something and it takes everything you had. Other people see the end result but not the effort, so you downplay the effort. But now they “want to see what you can really do when you put your whole back into it!”

Uh oh.

Look, if something was hard then you don’t get extra credit by pretending it wasn’t. The opposite is true, too – don’t make it seem harder than it was. But be honest with others – and with yourself – about exactly how hard it truly was.

It’ll be a little easier next time, after all.