When your mind flits back to a past holiday – be it a family break in Cornwall, a pre-kids adventure to Vietnam or a girl’s skiing trip to Courchevel – your overall impression of the holiday is coloured disproportionately by the best part of it (the ‘peak’) and what happened at the end. There might have been falling out between you, poor weather or illness on the trip, but if the peak part and the end were absolutely blooming brilliant then chances are you’ll think of that holiday as a cracking one. (It’s why if you’re going to treat yourself to business class one way only, you’re better off doing it on the return).
I’ve been thinking about this peak-end phenomenon in relation to a performance at work and specifically mid-year and end of year reviews. [Sidenote: if you are keen to pinpoint how you can better position yourself for promotion or better resource yourself for broader career success do use our quick and free Career Fuel diagnostic].
If we don’t keep a record of how we have performed throughout the year, noting small but significant wins; difficult situations deftly managed; the weekly work we’ve put into keeping our direct reports’ heads up in the face of another restructure etc we can’t confidently walk into our review and state our case for a top rating/pay rise/bonus/promotion. For sure, you might have had done something awesome in March (your peak moment) and got something over the line in December (the end of the review period) that your boss was really pleased with, but what about the rest of the year?
Bosses don’t give performance ratings based on peak-end moments (or at least they shouldn’t) and so you must go into that meeting and be able to talk about your performance across the whole review period.
Enter The Brag Folder.
A university academic introduced me to this many years ago.
It’s a place for storing wins and achievements for ease of retrieval in preparation for job interviews, performance reviews or when you’re having a wobble and your professional self-belief needs a boost (such as returning to work from maternity leave or starting a new job).
Your brag folder might be a lever arch file, a concertina folder or a notebook (I think a physical folder works better than digital storage – being able to hold ones achievements in one’s hands feels significant) and it’s likely to contain printouts, documents, certificates, handwritten notes covering things such as:
While brag folders themselves aren’t a classic psychological construct with tons of peer-review studies, the underlying mechanisms are well supported in the research literature.
1. Reflection & Performance Improvement
Documenting accomplishments and reviewing them regularly resembles keeping a performance journal, which research suggests helps improve outcomes and meta-learning: people who reflect on their work demonstrate better performance because they process successes and failures systematically rather than relying on imperfect memory. It’s why we note just encourage but give our coachees a journal with the words “WHAT’S GONE WELL?” printed on the front.
2. Self-Efficacy and Confidence
Albert Bandura’s work on self-efficacy — the belief in one’s ability to succeed — shows that mastery experiences (i.e., past success) are the strongest source of confidence. Recording achievements strengthens recall of those mastery moments and can enhance self-efficacy.
3. Self-Affirmation
Self-affirmation interventions (writing about positive aspects of self and core values) can maintain self-integrity and reduce stress related to threats or evaluation. A brag folder acts in a similar way by anchoring your self-concept in evidence of competence. [Sidenote: There’s more about the relationship between values and career success on episode 114 of COMEBACK COACH].
4. Countering Cognitive Bias (Recency & Negativity Biases)
Human memory tends to over-weigh recent and negative events. Recording wins regularly helps balance that bias and gives a more accurate picture of performance. Again – that’s why we give our coachees the What’s Gone Well? journal and encourage a weekly practice of noting their wins, progress and moments of pride.
5. Positive Feedback & Motivation
Studies show positive feedback leads to better subsequent performance outcomes than negative feedback alone. Keeping recorded positive feedback (e.g., emails, comments) can reinforce motivation and confidence.
Three ways to get the Brag Folder habit going and keep it in play whether you’re the CEO of a FinTech scale-up, account manager in a PR firm or an aspiring Partner in an accountancy firm:
Choose a folder/file/notebook you find visually appealing so you are happy to keep it in sight (e.g. on your desk).
2. Set a regular time to update it and put in your calendar. 10-15 minutes once a week is enough. I like a Saturday morning in the kitchen with a coffee.
3. Tell a friend or colleague you are committing to keeping a Brag Folder and invite her to do it too. You can add it as a talking point to your conversations or diarise a specific time to share and discuss your entries. I think this is a great quarterly exercise with someone who would delight in seeing you rise at work and who is also ambitious for her own career.
Our Success Stories page is a Brag Folder of sorts. Past coachees are talking about their gains from coaching and how their professional lives are in a different, better shape than before they spent time with us. If you are curious to know about real world outcomes from coaching take a look at our growing collection of short video conversations.
You can contact us any time about a potential coaching engagement.
