What Are You Actually Building Toward?
Most high-achieving women in tech are climbing toward a goal that was never really theirs. Here's how to change that.
If you've been following along with this series, you've done real work. You can now see a thought as separate from a circumstance. You have a rung on your thought ladder, one small, true, believable thought that is slightly more useful than the one that's been running on autopilot. Those two things together can genuinely change how you show up at work and in every area of your life.
But before we close out this series, I want to ask you something.
Do you actually want the next role? Or do you want what the role represents, the signal that your work has finally been seen and valued?
The goal that was never really yours
Here's something I've noticed with almost every high-achieving woman I work with. She's been climbing hard and doing excellent work and getting strong performance reviews. She knows a promotion is the logical next step. She's been told she needs to be more visible and more confident to get there, so she's been working on that too.
But underneath all of that hustle is a question she hasn't fully examined: what is she actually climbing toward?
I've seen this show up in two specific ways, and both of them are worth naming directly.
The first is the "should" promotion. This is the one that feels like the natural next step, the one her peers are hitting, the one it would feel strange not to want. She's ambitious. She's used to pushing herself forward. Stopping to ask whether the role actually aligns with how she wants to spend her time and energy can feel almost indulgent, like she doesn't have the luxury of being selective. So she keeps climbing because that's what you do.
The second is the "proof" promotion. This one is more personal and more dangerous. Underneath the ambition and the excellent performance reviews is a quieter thought she hasn't fully named: getting promoted will prove she's good enough. The promotion stopped being about her career a while ago and started being about something much more fundamental, her worth, her belonging, her right to be in the room.
Both of those are thoughts, not facts. "I should want this promotion" is a thought. "Getting promoted will prove I'm good enough" is a thought. And building a thought ladder toward a goal that's built on either of those thoughts is going to feel hollow even when it works, because the feeling she's actually looking for isn't in the title. You reach that level, and after a while you either realize you still feel like you don't belong, or you realize you don't even enjoy the role day to day. The promotion answered the wrong question.
The system that makes this harder
I want to name something directly here, because it matters for understanding why this happens so often for women in tech specifically.
Women are socialized not to draw attention to themselves. We're taught to be small, to shine the light on others, to let great work speak for itself. And so we often assume that if we do excellent work, it will get noticed and it will lead to the recognition and the promotion.
But we're operating in an industry where the systems were built to reward a very different kind of behavior, being visible, speaking up, actively claiming credit. There's a real contradiction between how many women naturally show up and how the system is designed to recognize contribution. That contradiction is not a personal failing. It's a design flaw in the system.
And when the recognition doesn't come despite the excellent work, it's very easy to conclude that you need to earn your way there harder, prove your worth more definitively, get the promotion that finally settles the question. Which is exactly how the "proof" promotion takes hold.
The recognition and the promotion you've earned deserve to mean something real. Not a verdict on your worth. Not the next logical step on a ladder going who knows where. Something you actually chose, for reasons that are actually yours.
The values exercise
This is where the work gets specific. I want you to think about your career differently for a moment. Not in titles or responsibilities or salary. In the things that actually get you out of bed in the morning.
What makes you genuinely excited to show up at work? For me, autonomy has always been near the top, the ability to decide what I work on, to make decisions without heavy oversight. For you it might look completely different. Maybe it's collaboration, you come alive when you're working with a cross-functional team toward a shared goal. Maybe it's growth, doing the uncomfortable things that push you outside your comfort zone. Maybe it's innovation, recognition, integrity, or creativity.
Step 1: Identify two or three values that genuinely resonate, the ones you find yourself nodding at immediately, not the ones that sound good for your next performance review. Write them down.
Step 2: Hold your current role up against each of those values. Where are you working in alignment? Where are the gaps?
Step 3: Now do the same for the next role you're considering or the promotion you've been working toward. Where does it align with your values more fully? Where might you have to make trade-offs?
This is not about deciding everything is wrong or blowing up your career. It's about getting clear on what you're actually building toward so that the confidence you're developing has somewhere real to go. A thought ladder pointed at a goal that's genuinely yours feels completely different from a thought ladder pointed at a symbol you've been told to want.
What you have now and what comes next
After three episodes you have a real toolkit. You can separate a circumstance from a thought. You have a rung you can stand on. And you now have a rough sense of your values and what you're actually building toward.
But a rough direction isn't a real goal. And a single rung isn't a rebuilt belief system that holds under sustained pressure. What you've done this week is the beginning, and the beginning matters enormously. What comes next is where it gets real.
If this series has resonated with you and you're ready to stop waiting to be sure and start leading like you mean it, I want to hear from you. Let’s have a quick 30-minute conversation about where you are today and where you’d like to be in the next 90 days.
