Are we kidding ourselves?

Are we kidding ourselves? I face this question every day when I ask the people I meet, "What have you done lately?" If we are not careful, our answers can turn into a virtual catalog of delusional thinking.

One of the biggest mistakes high achievers make is overestimating their contribution to a success, thus crediting themselves with an achievement that does not rightly belong to them. When was the last time you heard a colleague recount a triumph that you recall as a team effort, but, having gone through the rinse cycle of your colleague's ego, has ended up sounding like a one-man show?

On too many occasions - when we're not erasing our co-workers from the picture - we can find other ways to exaggerate the magnitude of our own achievements. We may think that one of our accomplishments has the impact of a nuclear bomb resonating throughout the company like so much business-savvy fallout, when in fact the significance is more like a popgun barely making a sound. How often have you had a colleague regale you with a blow-by-blow account of a sale or a supposedly fabulous meeting with a client while you politely listen and think, "So what?"

People also have a tendency to go too far back in time, digging up an achievement that happened so long ago that it's no longer relevant and may even qualify as ancient history. It makes them sound as though they're clinging to their past, or worse, they haven't done anything significant in a long, long time.

The opposite is also true. A lot of us tend to cite our most recent achievement, as if that particular event has more weight or significance because it is freshest in our minds. Psychologists call this "recency bias." It's why a gambler doubles his bet at a blackjack table after he's won a few hands; he over-weights his feeling of good luck, even though his odds of winning haven't changed. It's why investors plunge into a stock or mutual fund based on the most recent quarterly performance, even though a more reliable time frame would be five- or 10-year performance.

It's tempting, almost irresistible, to gravitate to the nearest successful example at hand to calculate our achievements, but it may not be the most meaningful representation of our abilities.

Remember this as you establish what you have done lately. Apply a stress test to each achievement by asking yourself:

a) Is this what happened, or am I filtering it through some inflexible personal preconception or belief?

b) Am I exaggerating my role in the achievement?

c) Am I discounting other people's contributions to the achievement?

d) Am I going too far back in time? Is the achievement still credible, or is it just old?

e) Am I attaching too much weight to a recent event simply because I remember it more vividly than an older event?

Chip away at any false assumptions that may distort your achievements, and you'll get a much clearer picture of what you've done lately. Without it, you'll never be able to envision everything else you can do. By increasing our understanding of achievement - what it means to us and what it means to the world - we can increase our mojo, that positive spirit that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.

We can look at ourselves more objectively. We can determine what really matters in our lives. We can strive for achievement that really matters to us and let go of achievement that does not create happiness and meaning in our lives.

If we want to increase our mojo, we can either change the degree of our achievement - how well we are doing - or change the definition of our achievement - what we are trying to do well.