Why is it so hard to see our own progress — and how do we start noticing it?

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In this reflective piece, guest contributor Adeola Olatunji explores why young Nigerian women struggle to recognise their own progress and offers a gentler way to measure growth, on their own terms.

Just a week ago, someone told me they were proud of me, and honestly, it left me with a quiet sense of confusion. It was not an unusual conversation because over the years, I have heard those words from family, friends, colleagues, and even people who know me only through my work. Each time, I respond politely, thank them for their kindness, and move on with my day.

But there is always a catch, or would I rather say, a plot twist. I know they mean it; I know their words come from a genuine place. Yet whenever someone tells me they are proud of me, there is usually a small, stubborn part of me that struggles to fully understand or grasp what it is they are looking at. As a result, I have spent a lot of time thinking about why that is.

The truth is, while other people are looking at my achievements, I am usually looking at my unfinished goals. While they are noticing progress, I am noticing distance, and while they are celebrating milestones, I am thinking about the long list of things I still want to accomplish and how to bring them to life.

For a long time, I assumed this was a deeply personal flaw. I’d always say to myself, “This is a me thing”, but now that I know better, at least to an extent, I’m beginning to think perhaps I was not grateful enough or I was too aggressively focused on the future or I simply did not know how to sit with my own little accomplishments.

But over time, through conversations, shared experiences with other young women and through observing the brilliant, fast-paced lives of the people around me and on social media, I began to realise that this feeling is far more common than I initially thought.

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Why success never feels like enough

So I finally figured that young women just like me are quietly carrying the same contradiction. We work hard for opportunities, pray for breakthroughs, and chase goals with determination and persistence.

Yet when those moments finally arrive, we often struggle to sit with them long enough to acknowledge what they really mean. Rather, we subconsciously move almost immediately to the next thing. For example, the job comes, and we start thinking about the promotion. The article gets published, and we begin worrying about the next pitch. One degree is completed, and our minds immediately shift toward the next qualification. The current achievement barely has time to settle in our realities before another expectation takes its place.

In that process, we became uncomfortable with celebrating ourselves, and I sometimes wonder if this begins earlier than we realise. Many of us grew up being praised for our potential. We were the children who were told we were bright, promising, intelligent, talented and capable. Teachers spoke confidently about our futures, family members reminded us that we were destined for great things, and so we learned very early to associate our core value with the act of achievement. Of a truth, at the time, those expectations felt encouraging because they gave us confidence and motivated us to dream bigger.

However, no one tells us that carrying potential into adulthood can be surprisingly complicated. Potential is an interesting thing because it always points toward the future. It is not about who you are today but rather who you could become tomorrow. And when you spend years entirely focused on becoming, it becomes incredibly difficult to appreciate where you already are, even when life is moving forward with tangible progress happening and there is undeniable evidence that you have grown. You continue measuring yourself against a future version of yourself that does not yet exist.

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Living in the age of constant comparison

In many ways, modern life makes this even harder for us. We are constantly exposed to carefully curated, hyper-aesthetic snapshots of other people’s achievements. Every day, we encounter a relentless celebratory roll-call on our timelines, announcements of new jobs, funding rounds, scholarships, relocations, engagements, and perfectly lit photo dumps of milestones upon milestones. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with celebrating the success of others. In fact, I genuinely enjoy seeing other people win. But there is a subtle, psychological consequence to living in a world where everyone else’s progress is constantly visible, such that we subconsciously begin to lose perspective on our own.

It then becomes easier to focus on what we have not done than on what we have. Easier to notice the opportunities we missed than the opportunities we seized, and even easier to dwell on the goals still ahead than the ground we have already covered. And this is why many end up living in a constant state of emotional postponement.

We tell ourselves we will feel successful, accomplished or proud later, maybe when we earn more money, reach a certain career status, finally secure that one opportunity we have been chasing, or when life looks closer to the exact version we imagined. So until then, we remain in a strange state of suspension, convinced that our real story hasn’t actually started yet.

The irony, of course, is that life does not wait for us to feel ready. While we are busy looking ahead, life continues unfolding in the present. Growth continues happening, lessons continue shaping us, friendships deepen, confidence develops, and new experiences change us. We become entirely different people while chasing the next version of ourselves. And yet, these internal forms of growth rarely receive the same recognition as visible achievements.

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The progress we fail to notice

I believe that is why the words “I’m proud of you” have started to mean something completely different to me. I no longer think people are only responding to external achievements when they say them. Instead, I think they are responding to growth, effort, persistence, and the version of you they have watched emerge or evolve.

People often see a bigger picture than the one you are looking at because while you are measuring yourself against your future, they are measuring you against your past. They remember where you started, the fears you once had, the uncertainties you once carried, the challenges you worked through, and the goals you once only hoped to achieve. 

And perhaps that is the lesson many ambitious women need to hear right now. Acknowledging your progress does not mean abandoning your ambition. Being proud of yourself does not mean you have stopped growing. Celebrating where you are does not mean you are settling for less. It simply means recognising that growth deserves acknowledgement even before the final destination is reached.

I still have goals I want to accomplish. I still have dreams that feel entirely too far away, and I still experience moments where I wonder whether I should be further ahead than I am because there are versions of my life that exist only in my imagination.

But with each new day, I am learning that the people who tell us they are proud of us are not asking us to dream smaller or stop reaching. I think they are simply reminding us to pause long enough to notice how far we have already come. And also to be grateful enough to recognise that while we are still becoming, we have already become so much more than we often allow ourselves to see.

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