How To Stop Selling Yourself Short At Work (With Examples)

No one wants to be “that guy” who shamelessly brags about themselves, but in the workplace, it’s possible to be too modest. Consistently selling yourself short is detrimental to your career and may annoy your coworkers as much as the super braggy person does.

In this article, we’ll show you how to stop selling yourself short at work — without being obnoxious — and examples of what selling yourself short looks like.

Key Takeaways

• Being confident and honest about your skills will help others trust you and move your career forward.

• Selling yourself short is often a result of not believing that your skills, ideas, and experience is valuable.

• Hiding, denying, or downplaying your achievements and abilities is a form of selling yourself short, as is avoiding opportunities to push yourself.

How to Stop Selling Yourself Short at Work

For those who are selling themselves short, purposefully or not, the path to remedy the situation isn’t always clear. This is what you’ve been doing this whole time, after all. Even if you know you’re doing something wrong, it’s not always obvious what you should be doing instead.

To that end, here are some ideas about how you can start representing yourself and your accomplishments in a more flattering way:

1. Be accurate, but bold. You want to be confident in the way that you describe yourself (in person or not). You obviously should be careful about taking credit for something that you haven’t done, but when someone is asking you about your accomplishments or qualifications, that isn’t the time to be modest.

2. Own your accomplishments. When you do something particularly well or provide a sizeable boost in value for your employer, note it. We recommend keeping a “kudos folder” of all written communications stating that you’re awesome. That way, you can turn to it whenever you need a morale boost.

   You can also keep screenshots of impressive statistics or links to well-performed projects in there to remind yourself that factual evidence of your greatness exists.

3. Ask for feedback. If you already have a job but feel that your accomplishments haven’t been recognized lately, ask your boss if there’s some way you can do a performance review sometime soon.

   This article about “tooting your own horn” has some good examples about how to make sure you’re being recognized more at work without being obnoxious.

4. Accept compliments. Fight the urge to downplay, qualify, or negate compliments. As a first step, learn to just say thank you while maintaining eye contact with your complimenter. Also, learn to give more compliments — they’re free and they make people’s days when they’re genuine, thoughtful, and spaced-out enough.

5. Take on new challenges. When the opportunity arises to do something new and difficult at work, give it a shot. The more you learn through these new experiences, the more confident you’ll be at work and in new situations.

   You can start small by learning a new skill in your free time or just making an effort to contribute more at meetings, if public speaking is something you struggle with.

6. Make sure your resume is up to date and easy to read. Especially if you’re actively looking for jobs. This is the first thing employers are going to see about you, and if it isn’t accurate or legible, then you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to your personal achievements.

7. Be aware of your weaknesses. It’s good to want to improve your weaknesses, but don’t let yourself be defined by them. You want people to remember you for your strengths and successes, not for your failures.

What Does “Selling Yourself Short” Mean?

The phrase “selling yourself short” originally comes from the stock market. Short selling is a common tactic amongst stockbrokers. Basically, a trader will borrow and rapidly sell stock that they believe will decline in price.

Once the stock price declines, they buy the stock back to replace what they borrowed — how much they make thus depends on how much the price has declined. Essentially, “short-selling” indicates a lack of faith in something, whether that be in a company’s stock or — in this case — in you.

When someone says that you’re selling yourself short, this means that they believe that you’re not portraying yourself in a way that’s fair to you, based on your achievements, accomplishments, or potential.

In this case, it isn’t someone else who doesn’t believe in you. You sell yourself short when you don’t believe in yourself — or, at the very least, when it appears that way.

Ways You’re Selling Yourself Short at Work

Maybe you’ve heard someone tell you recently that you’ve been selling yourself short. It can happen even to those with seemingly high self-esteem.

Fundamentally, it stems from a difference in perception — namely, when your own perception of your personal achievement or worth differs from either the reality or from someone else’s perception of you.

There are a lot of things you might be doing every day that can make people think, fairly or not, that you’re selling yourself short.

Things like:

1. Playing down personal accomplishments. Whether in person or on a resume, downplaying things that you’ve done at work can make you seem like you lack confidence. Or worse, it can genuinely make it appear as though the things that you’ve done weren’t all that impressive.

   It’s great to be modest, but you need to own your achievements as well as your mistakes. Learning to accept praise can be tough, but it’s a great way to stop selling yourself short at work.

2. Qualifying your statements. You might be qualifying too many of your sentences with phrases like “maybe…” or “I feel like…” — these kinds of phrases take a lot of the bite out of your statements about yourself and can make others question their truthfulness.

   Also, avoid starting your ideas with “this is probably not going to work, but…” or some variation. Especially if you’re just brainstorming, allow yourself to put ideas out there without pre-judging yourself. If you don’t take your ideas seriously, others won’t take them as seriously either. That’s a recipe for a negative feedback loop where your confidence suffers.

3. Hiding your achievements. A poorly formatted resume can also be to blame, for those on the job hunt. Even if you’re confident in your achievements, formatting them in a way that makes them tough to parse is still selling yourself short in a massive way.

   Some people are afraid of taking credit with bold, quantified accomplishments on their resume. This is a huge mistake, as the value you add is the most important thing your resume should sell.

4. Saying “no” to opportunities. It’s easy to stay in your comfort zone all the time. Once you know how to handle your job’s essential tasks and responsibilities, it can be scary to take on new challenges.

   Sure, you might make a few mistakes or not do everything perfectly the first few times, but taking on new challenges is the only way to learn and grow. Don’t worry about your ego and remember that everyone starts as a beginner.

   Failing to push yourself with new challenges will create a negative feedback loop. You won’t have the confidence to take on new things because you don’t have any recent impressive accomplishments because you don’t take on new things, etc., etc.

5. Avoiding the spotlight in conversations. Being an active listener is a great trait, but it also involves talking sometimes. When someone wants to talk about what you do and how you do it, be enthusiastic and confident about your work and your process.

   If you sound unsure about yourself or always defer to someone else’s opinion, people might stop trusting you to get your work done on your own. Even if you’re making some mistakes, it’s usually best to proceed with an imperfect solution rather than sit around paralyzed with anxiety about what to do next.

6. Not communicating your wishes. Whether it’s not asking for that promotion or the help you need to get your job done, selling yourself at short work has real, financial consequences.

   Additionally, if you’re afraid of others’ opinions, you may never contribute ideas to meetings. That might also make it harder to ask for a promotion down the line; another bad feedback loop.

7. Not crediting others’ opinions of you. Remember that selling yourself short isn’t dependent on your own perception on yourself — it’s about what others are able to see and understand about you, and whether that’s reflective of reality.

   If someone can’t see or understand your very real contributions due to the way they’re being presented, then in some way, shape, or form, you’re selling yourself short.

8. Not negotiating salary offers. If you get a job offer and don’t negotiate the salary or benefits because you think, “I should be grateful, they probably know what I’m worth,” you’re selling yourself short.

   Not making a reasonable counteroffer shows that you don’t believe in the value of your skills, and it can cause you to lose out on a higher — or even competitive — salary.

   Many employers purposely lowball candidates when making job offers because they expect them to counter. While you shouldn’t ask for an exorbitant amount more, making a counteroffer of some kind is usually perfectly acceptable.

9. Only applying for jobs you’re overqualified for. You’re selling yourself short if you’re avoiding applying for jobs that would move your career forward.

   By only applying for positions that you know you can get easily, you’re keeping yourself from growing and setting yourself up for frustration.

   You might be surprised at the number of positions employers will consider you for even though you don’t meet all of their criteria. And, after all, the worst they can do is say no, so you might as well try.

Final Thoughts

It’s tough to talk about yourself; no one wants to seem like “that” coworker who always plays up their own accomplishments to the annoyance of everyone around them.

But downplaying your achievements serves no purpose other than to lower your own self-esteem while making others pity you. In the workplace, the combination of those two things can be a career-killer.

So, yes, avoid narcissism as much as you can. But remember that it’s not a bad thing to feel good about yourself, despite what every screaming chemical in your brain might be telling you.

Author

Ryan Morris

Ryan Morris was a writer for the Zippia Advice blog who tried to make the job process a little more entertaining for all those involved. He obtained his BA and Masters from Appalachian State University.