Today on the Get Inspired! Project we had an interview with Susan Clark of “heartspark” and the one comment she made struck me and inspired me to write a post. Obviously if you’ve read any of my posts lately you realize that all the interviews are striking me and making me re-assess myself on many different levels.

This one touched on something I wanted to expand upon, and I’d love to get some dialogue going on this, Susan said, “we’ve really been socialized to hide our light under a bushel, so I encourage people to be boastful and give them permission to brag” and that is really something to think about. We all are told not to brag and to downplay our accomplishments, but we shouldn’t do that. If we are unwilling to shine our own light, jumping into the spotlight that we have turned on, what does that say or do to us?

Does that diminish what we’ve done? No, I don’t think so. But does it encourage us internally to repeat the behavior? no.

There is nothing like the rush that comes from recognition of what you’ve done. As an actor and an improv comic, I can tell you that the applause at the end of a scene is better than a paycheck, better than any traditional reward you can imagine, and being able to bow and through that action say, “Yes! That was me, I am good at this and you saw that”

But we don’t get that in everyday life, in the little and big moments of actions and seeing our efforts make a difference and we are told to downplay that?

One site I belong to Fit Connect, is an online fitness community and their tagline is “it’s OK to brag” I love it. And I think it is OK to brag to be proud of your accomplishments. You are magnificent in the things that you do. It’s lying to yourself to downplay that, and it takes away integrity and self-worth, I think.