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Disclaimer: This advice is predicated on the notion that the work in question is trivial in nature. This is not legal or financial business advice in any way. This article is directed at people who are not properly credited for working on everyday tasks surrounding school, work, friendships, etc.
Some of the work you do in life will go unnoticed.
There will be times when you give a task everything you’ve got, and receive almost no recognition for your efforts. There will even be times when people take credit for the work that you’ve done.
As if the efforts you put into creating excellent output could be replicated by anybody off the street, they will be accepted without any positive reinforcement in return. So how should you react to times when this takes place? Should you mention the fact that you worked hard on your work? Should you ask to be recognized by the people who are taking your effort for granted?
The article proposes that perhaps, you should not react to your work being taken for granted or being credited as being done by someone else.
This will hurt to accept in the short-term, and you will feel the need to fight for your cause. However, this article aims to shed some insight onto why you shouldn’t spend your energy and time attributing rightful credit to yourself. Apart from missing the sense of satisfaction you gain from being praised for the work that you do, you should understand that not receiving credit for the work you do and take pride in, can actually serve to benefit you in the long-run.
Being Confident in Your Future Output
Take the approach of remembering that everything you do builds upon itself to create a better product in the future. All actions you commit, words you say, and thoughts you think will improve with every iteration that they go through. The work you did in the past is already old news, even if it was yesterday. Take pride in the work you’ll be doing later, rather than holding onto what you’ve done in the past. Your past work is simply one repetition among many. You marginally improve with everything you create, and sometimes not receiving credit for previous work works out to highlight future output.
Having credit for your work being taken away from you by someone else takes pressure off your shoulders. You have improved from doing the work without having been attached to it. You avoided the possibility of being labelled into a corner and you have no pressure to continue improving on that work. You have retained the creative freedom to continue working freely while those who stole your credit may be expected to create similar work in the future, or answer to its mistakes.
You should carry the confidence of continuous improvement with everything you do. Be sure that your work tomorrow is better than the work you did yesterday, serving to make the loss of credit for yesterday’s work seem unimportant.
The people who take credit for your work will be burdened with future expectation without having gone through the repetitions to improve. They will have gained the skill of manipulation and theft, while you gain the skills of honest repetition. Their short-term victory is meaningless when you look at it from this perspective. Let them bask in the glory of taking credit for your work knowing that they will seldom attain those feelings through the work they do themselves. Take pride in your future work bringing you even more glory, as they wont be there to take credit for everything that you do.
Let Others Fight Your Fight
Any good work you do is likely to make an impact on honest people around you. You will gain followers for doing any sort of work effectively. Let the benefactors of your work keep tabs on whether you receive credit for it, rather than doing it yourself. Focus on continuing working hard and allow those battles to be fought by the people around you. You will begin to notice that those taking credit for your work will be shot down quick, and the more your improve, the more evident this will become.
Your influence will grow when other people start fighting for proper credit being given to you. It will show others that you have people who respect what you do, which will serve to gain you new followers. The people who take credit for your work thereby increase your popularity inadvertently, but it is important that you ignore their attempts at diverting credit away from you early on. Allow others to fight your battles, and you will utilize the theft of credit to your own advantage.
Not only will justice be served for those who steal your credit, but you will ensure that credit is properly attributed with any future work you do. You’ll be able to keep your eye on improving while others fight for you. Early on there may be only one person who voices truth surrounding credit for your work. As you go on to produce however, you’ll gain followers for what you do. More people will begin ensuring you get proper credit for what you do.