How to Advocate for Yourself at Work... Even When It Feels Uncomfortable

When I first started working with Alex*, he was frustrated... and rightfully so. As a process analyst, he was consistently taking on work two levels above his title, driving meaningful change on high-visibility projects, and delivering results that leadership depended on. Yet when it came time for performance reviews and conversations about moving into the next level, he kept hitting a wall.

The problem wasn't his work. It was that almost no one with influence actually knew about his work, at least not in the way that mattered.

Alex's story isn't unusual. In fact, it's one of the most common patterns I see with mid-to-senior professionals: highly capable people who are so focused on doing the work that they've never built the habit of making that work visible. And when they try, it can feel uncomfortable... like bragging, or worse, like they're overstepping.

But self-advocacy isn't about making yourself sound bigger than you are. It's about making sure the right people have an accurate picture of the impact you're driving. There's a meaningful difference, and once you understand it, everything changes.

The "Good Work Speaks for Itself" Myth

One of the most damaging things mid-career professionals carry with them is the belief that strong performance will eventually be recognized on its own. It won't. Not reliably, anyway.

Your manager is managing up, across, and sideways. Your senior leadership is navigating priorities you're not always privy to. In that environment, the professionals who get promoted, tapped for stretch assignments, and remembered when opportunities arise are not necessarily the best performers. They're the ones whose contributions are understood by the people making those decisions.

Self-advocacy is how you close that gap.

Own Your One-on-Ones

The easiest place to start is a meeting you're probably already having: your one-on-one with your manager.

Most people treat this as a status update — a checklist of what they're working on. But your one-on-one is actually prime time. It's one of the few dedicated spaces where you have your manager's attention, and you should be the one setting the agenda.

Come prepared. Know what you want to cover. Think beyond the task list: What's progressing well and why? Where are you encountering friction? What do you need from your manager to keep moving forward, whether that's a decision, a resource, or someone cleared from your path?

When you shift the conversation from "here's what I'm doing" to "here's the impact I'm making and here's what I need to keep driving results," you accomplish two things. You give your manager a clearer view of your contribution. And you make their job easier because now they can speak to your work with confidence when they're reporting up.

If you're navigating something particularly complex or ambiguous, don't wait for your next scheduled check-in. Request additional time. Come with a clear agenda and set the stage beforehand so your manager shows up with the right context. This isn't overstepping. It's ownership.

Build Your Brag Book (Yes, Really)

This one gets eye-rolls, but stay with me.

A brag book is simply a running record of your wins, contributions, and impact updated regularly so you're not scrambling to reconstruct a year's worth of work the week before your performance review.

The practice is simple: at the end of each week, take ten minutes to jot down what you finished, what you accomplished, and whether you hit, exceeded, or approached your targets. Keep it somewhere accessible and not just on your work computer. A personal folder, a notes app, anywhere you'll still have access to it if your circumstances change.

What makes this more than just a list is the framing. When Alex and I worked on his brag book ahead of his performance reviews, we didn't just document what he did; we connected the scope of his contributions to the role level he was targeting. We translated his day-to-day impact into the language of that next level, and tied specific results to broader organizational goals. That shift — from "here's what I did" to "here's what this means for the business" — is what transforms a brag book from a feel-good list into a credible, strategic document.

Do a Quarterly Audit

Beyond the weekly habit, a quarterly audit is where real clarity happens.

My co-host Melissa, who you can hear more from on our podcast Careers Unfiltered, uses a structured quarterly business review (QBR) process for her own work. She dives into data, tracks what moved and what didn't, and uses it as the foundation for conversations with her manager. It's a practice worth building for yourself, even if your version is lighter.

The goal is to look at the full picture: not just your wins, but what didn't work and why. For each significant data point — positive or negative — push yourself to ask why three or four times. You'll be surprised how quickly you get from a surface observation to a real insight.

This habit pays off in performance reviews. Instead of reacting defensively when something underperformed, you can walk in having already examined it, identified the root cause, and developed a plan. You shift from someone being evaluated to someone actively managing their own trajectory.

Aim to spend at least an hour on this each quarter. If you're building the process from scratch, it'll take longer. But once you know where your data lives and what matters, it becomes efficient fast.

Think Beyond Your Direct Manager

Here's where a lot of mid-to-senior professionals leave significant opportunity on the table.

Your direct manager is one voice. But your reputation — the one that determines whether you're considered for leadership roles, cross-functional opportunities, or a spot on a high-visibility team — is built across a much wider network.

This doesn't mean you need to be political or performative about it. It means being intentional about the relationships you're building with stakeholders outside your immediate team, and thinking about how your work is perceived beyond your manager's line of sight.

For Alex, this turned out to be the deciding factor. Despite working diligently on strengthening the relationship with his manager and making real progress in how he communicated and advocated for himself, it became clear they weren't compatible, and he wasn't going to get where he wanted under her leadership. What did get him promoted was the impression he had made on key stakeholders across the organization, the people he had collaborated with on major projects who knew his work firsthand.

When an opportunity opened on one of those teams, he was the obvious choice. They already knew him.

Find your champion. If showing up in a room full of senior leaders and presenting your work feels out of reach right now, that's okay. Start by identifying one or two people you do feel comfortable with. Someone whose opinion is respected, who sees your work, and who might naturally bring your name into conversations you're not in. That kind of advocacy can open doors that no amount of internal maneuvering will.

Alex has since leaned into building visibility more intentionally. He's improved his presentation skills, spoken at large town halls, and helped his organization understand the impact his team is driving at a broader level. He's also become someone who actively lifts others up by recognizing contributions publicly, fostering the kind of culture he once wished he'd had. That reputation compounds.

When the Environment Is the Problem

Sometimes you do everything right and still hit a ceiling. Not because of your performance, but because of your environment.

If you're in a culture where visibility is punished, contributions go unrecognized, or the structure rewards noise over substance, that's important data. You can try to model the change you want to see by recognizing others and creating small moments of acknowledgment, but you can't single-handedly shift a culture overnight.

Know your "no list." The things you won't tolerate. The conditions that are non-negotiable for you to do your best work. Self-advocacy includes knowing when to stop fighting for a seat at a table that was never going to be set for you, and instead, starting to build toward the one that will.

The brag book, the relationships, the track record you've built? That's your runway. It's what makes the next move possible, and easier.

Start Before You Think You Need To

Self-advocacy isn't something you pull out when you're up for a promotion or in crisis mode. It's a practice. A set of habits that, over time, make your impact impossible to ignore and your career far more resilient.

It will feel uncomfortable at first. Do it anyway. Like any skill, it gets easier the more you use it.

Alex still documents his wins every week. He still has uncomfortable conversations when he needs to. The difference now is that he has a manager who sees him, a network that advocates for him, and a clear sense of the value he brings. That didn't happen by accident.

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If you're heading into a performance review and you're not sure how to articulate the impact you've been making — or you're ready to make a case for that next level and want to make sure you're doing it in a way that lands — this is exactly the work I do with clients.

We'll get clear on how to frame your contributions, prepare you for the conversations that matter most, and make sure you're walking in confident, not scrambling. Let's talk.

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*Name changed to protect client confidentiality.

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