Technique: Nice things people have said to me.

Create your own book of little wins.

I don’t really understand how my brain works.

I seem to be able to effortlessly absorb HUGE amounts of information, pick through it, make connections, and play back an insightful summary, and opportunities to improve things, but can never remember to do my groceries.

I can retain information from years ago (still remember my first girlfriend’s landline phone number, and the passwords to services I logged into on the early web in the mid 90s), but forget to eat.

And then there are the things which get in the way of working well - I remember all of the negative feedback from clients, all of the rejections, all of the projects where I could have done more, could have done better, where things go wrong - but cannot recall any of the wins, any of the good outcomes, any of the positive feedback.

Yes, my therapist is aware. No, we haven’t solved it yet.

But one of the techniques which I’ve used for a little while is my “Nice things people have said to me” book.

It’s effectively a set of clippings, copied and pasted from emails, chats, slack messages, public comments, when my work has been shared, passing observations - a scrapbook of positive feedback and compliments.

It might sound a little egocentric - but my brain, unfortunately, has a habit of suppressing my ability to remember good things.

And in work, this is an issue - because when I’m selling myself, my work, I need to remember the good things, the case studies, the outcomes, the results, the feedback, the stories which build trust and reputation. When a new client asks “What have you done before to demonstrate you could do it again for us?”, I need a bank of things I can call upon to say “Look, here you go”.

And more generally, as a person, on the days where I’m not feeling so great, when the inbox is quiet, when perhaps I’m not working, or feeling a little alone - looking back over the list of wins is helpful.

In my case - the “nice things people have said” list isn’t “Hey Matthew you’re awesome”, but rather people saying that I’ve helped them in some way. That my work has been useful. That they’ve benefited from it, or appreciated it. Because my personal reward centres are lit-up by knowing that my work is having a positive impact.

The little corners of your brain might light up to different things: perhaps it’s your work being shared by others, maybe it’s winning a new contract, maybe it’s creative impact, maybe it’s the number of people who liked something.

Whilst it’s important to make sure we’re not focusing on metrics and measures which are empty or chasing dopamine hits from the wrong things (there’s probably a whole other article in that), capturing the little wins is important.

The third most common stressor for freelancers, based upon our annual survey, is “Feeling lack of confidence” - 84.6% of felt this at some point in 2024. That’s a HUGE number.

Confidence is obviously a complex beast. There’s no one cause, we could fall into the debate around whether “Imposter Syndrome” is a real thing or not, whether you should “fake it until you make it”, the difference between feelings and facts, etc. etc.

But when you’re in a quiet spell, or after a string of rejections - it can be hard for all of us to remember the positives, the wins, the successes. It can feel like we’re making no progress at all, despite evidence to the contrary.

In the field of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), a combination of two approaches is combined to help individuals get out of potentially negative or destructive behaviours (has been shown to be highly effective for things like addiction, insomnia, etc):

1) Cognitive (how we think and feel)
2) Behavioural (how we act)

You can see where the name comes from ;)

A big part of the “cognitive” aspects is challenging our firmly held beliefs, through evidence.

“I’m not getting any sleep” explains the insomniac, but a sleep diary shows that actually they’re getting 5-6 hours a night, albeit broken. “I’m not seeing any improvements” explains the freelancer, despite their income actually being up on last year by this point.

Without evidence or data - it’s REALLY hard to be subjective about how we’re getting on. After three months of no work - of course, you’re going to be feeling like it’s bad.

But without some sort of benchmarks, some sort of hard numbers to score yourself against, it’s possibly all just feelings, not facts.

Whilst feelings are entirely valid, and feeling dreadful, anxious, worried or fearful is never to be dismissed - if the facts are you’re actually in an okay place, you’re at risk of making yourself unwell for nothing.

So having evidence, having hard data on what is working, what isn’t working, some sort of goals, structure, framework to be able to evaluate your own progress, is essential - so you can focus on truths over assumptions.

Feelings can easily get in the way of our own success - if you are feeling less confident, you might be less likely to apply for that project, to send that email, to set your price a little higher, to chase that invoice.

And each of those small but compounding steps can become self-fulfilling. A slightly lower day rate means your income is slightly lower, and you start to feel like you’re “worth a little less”, so next time, you accept an even lower rate.

So building an evidence base for yourself is crucial.

When the Leapers community was active, we had a channel called #littlewins - a space for freelancers to share even the smallest successes. Perhaps it was having lunch, getting your accounting done, some positive feedback from a client, winning a pitch, completing a training course, or just going outside for a walk.

The act of sharing those wins was beneficial in three ways:

1. Sharing progress not only makes it more likely for your to complete your goals, but also creates social connection

2. Sharing progress creates a repository you can look at back over time, and see all of the steps forward you’ve taken

3. Sharing in the open helps others do the same, and normalises celebrating the small steps, not just the big ones.

(Interestingly, there’s also counter-evidence to show that sharing intentions can actually reduce the likelihood of making progress, because it tricks your brain into thinking you’ve done something (i.e. sharing your goals) - but that’s another matter.)

But even if you’re not sharing - that repository of evidence for yourself, a little list of steps you’re making gives you tangible documentation, which you can, when you’re not feeling too positive, look at, and challenge any beliefs you’re not making progress.

My “Nice things people have said to me” list is an important tool in building my own confidence, self-belief, and reminds me that the work I’m doing (even though it doesn’t pay any of my bills) is important and valued - and that’s why it’s important to keep keeping on.

Tangibly then - what techniques can you take from this?

1. Create a way of logging your progress - what are the small (and big) wins from the week? Build this into your weekly 15 minutes of reflection.

2. Don’t sweat lack of progress - it’s not going to be linear. You’ll have great weeks and bad weeks, but the overall progress is what matters.

3. Don’t be afraid to bookmark a nice thing - it can be hard to hear positives for some people. Just capture them, even if you find it harder to accept them.

4. Encourage others to share their wins too - create spaces where people can celebrate their progress. It doesn’t need to be bragging - but shared success.

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What’s your little win for the week?
Share them openly, please!

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