Last week I answered a set of fun interview questions from Mohammad Darab. One question that he asked really jumped out at me:

What are you most proud of doing/accomplishing for the SQL Server community so far in your career?

Why This Question Matters

I looked at this question and realized that it has been a while since I’ve asked myself, “What are you proud of?”

Whether it’s in the context of community contributions, or in the context of your general professional career, it’s really worth stopping and taking the time to ask yourself this question. Because I think if we are proud of ourselves for doing good things or difficult things, stopping to think about that helps us do more good things, and more difficult things.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Many of us won’t come up with everything we should be proud of at first. Some of us tend to minimize our own achievements, and if you do this, you’re particularly the person who could be most helped by this thought exercise. So take the time to ask yourself a few variations on the question:

• What have you done that solved a problem for other people at work or in the community?
• What have you done that has taught other people something?
• What have you done that reinforced something good that someone else did?
• What have you done that was difficult where you had to overcome some obstacle? The obstacle could be personal, financial, social, anything.

These don’t all have to be difficult things. Sometimes, the things we end up being most proud of weren’t a lot of work – we just had a really good idea, or were in the right place at the right time. And these don’t all have to be things that you did alone, either. Some of my proudest memories over my life are from when I did things as part of a team.

My Answer

You can read about what I’m currently proud of in my interview here.

Share Your Story

If you’re inspired by this question, don’t wait to be interviewed. Write out what you’re proud of, either in the comments here or in a blog post of your own. I’d love to read about it.