A highlight reel is a curated collection of your most meaningful moments. Accomplishments, breakthroughs, praise, uncanny achievements, talents-on-display, and concrete examples or stories of the impact you make should all be on your highlight reel.

Your highlight reel could be a formal collection of accomplishments (I have a few really nice emails flagged in my inbox, a video farewell from my former colleagues at Vancity, an old VHS of my appearance on The Hour, and cards from my parents that celebrate important milestones). It can be a spreadsheet of well-organized summaries (cool and weird). It could be a well curated video (literally athletic prospects and aspiring filmmakers share highlight reels).

Or your highlight reel might just live in your head.

Wherever you keep your highlight reel, here are five reasons why you should have one and how you can use it in your worklife.

Sharpen self-awareness

It’s hard to argue with the objective truth of watching ourselves on video. Evaluating performance on tape looks and feels different than living the experience, especially if we watch ourselves with others (cringey, I know). What made this moment meaningful? What did I do well? Deliberate noticing builds a clearer picture of who you are as a human, which helps us cultivate self-awareness.

Self-awareness is a key ingredient for heightened emotional intelligence, which is one of the most important skills you can build.

Automated career storytelling

Whether you’re in a job interview, a chance conversation with a senior leader, or a networking moment you didn’t see coming, planned happenstance – which simply means making the most out of random or unplanned situations – is best achieved through preparedness.

Knowing you highlight reel gives you instant access to compelling, specific examples that communicate your value without having to reconstruct them under pressure. It turns “tell me about a time when…” from breaking a full-court-press into a layup.

Negotiate like a boss (with your boss)

Great performance reviews are caring discussions of accumulated achievements and lessons learned throughout a period of time (usually a year). A running highlight reel means you show up prepared, specific, and confident so that you can turn your receipts and stories into raises and promotions.

If you’re a good manager, starting conversation off with a “walk me through your highlight reel” prompt sets the right tone, too.

Confidence booster (or rebuilder)

The genesis for this article came from a conversation at a book launch. Two of us were reflecting on what its like to experience low points – professional failures, critical feedback, rocky relationships, parenting fiascos – and how to bounce back. Your highlight reel is an evidence-based track record of how you’ve got this.

It reminds you with concrete examples what impact you’ve made and what you can achieve. For me, when I’m feeling low there are three things from my highlight reel that ground me in confidence:

1. Cards from my kids because they are ridiculous, honest, and loving
2. An email from Modris Ekstein, a brilliant Canadian Historian who appreciated one of my papers from grad school
3. The video farewell my Vancity colleagues made when I left the credit union (Lindsay Bissett doing an impression of me as Dwight Schrute kills me every time!)

Whether we need a pick-me-up or self-assurance we can function in our job, scrolling our highlight reel can rebuild confidence.

Look how far you’ve come!

Growth and legacy are reflected in the patterns that emerge over time: skills developed, recurring references to strengths and talents, the impacts made on communities. This makes it easier to see where you’ve grown, articulate your professional identity, and identify what kind of work energizes you most.

Over a career, your highlight reel becomes a record of how you’ve shown up – for teams, organizations, and communities. It’s also something you can draw on to mentor others, share hard-won lessons, or write that book you keep putting off.

Wisdom is built over time, through continuous learning and experiences that we capture in a highlight reel.