We received a reply from one of our community members the other day reminding us of an incredibly powerful technique that we use to maintain motivation and build our confidence: the Brag Doc.
A brag doc, wins doc, success wall (whatever you call it), is quite simply a document that you create for yourself detailing all of your wins and accomplishments over time.
Why?
Quite often your biggest enemy is you. What we say to ourselves matters and when we’re feeling demotivated or are having a hard time, it’s easy to spiral into thinking we’re not good enough or that we’re not worth it.
This can be a massive hit to our confidence which only amplifies the issue!
In these situations a brag doc serves as a reminder of how many incredible things we actually do accomplish – big and small. Read the items you have on your document when you need some inspiration and let it put the wind back in your sails.
Put anything you want in the doc:
- Delivered project <x> on time at work and was thanked for my efforts.
- Learned and built an API from scratch using FastAPI including adding tests using pytest.
- Solved the Minecraft Bite on the PyBites Code Challenges Platform (we had to).
- Learned how to write a list comprehension in Python.
- Read The One Thing and immediately took action on my goals.
- Taught my 7 year old how to use Scratch to code on a micro:bit.
- Gave a talk at my local Python meet up.
Again, the idea here is to record your accomplishments. They’re going to be highly tailored to you and what you perceive as a win or valuable.
It has to be meaningful or it won’t have the desired effect when you need the motivation.
This really is a brilliant motivational technique we actually use ourselves in conjunction with holding each other accountable.
Start creating your brag doc right now, then go fill in this form to let us know what your top 3 favourite items are (you can also share one in the comments below).
Keep up the motivation and hack your mindset!
— Julian and Bob