Are You Chasing Resume Accolades or Obituary Accolades?

The Brief

• Resume accolades can become a pursuit of public admiration: the award, the title, the recognition that tells other people you are impressive. Obituary accolades reflect the loving legacy people carry because you were part of their lives.
• Public recognition gives you visible feedback. The quieter work of love and lasting influence can lose time and attention when applause becomes the main measure of what matters.
• Examine what you would still pursue without an audience, then give one relationship or meaningful contribution a place in your week that recognition cannot continually displace.

The award announcement goes live, and people you have not spoken to in years begin congratulating you. Your name is on the list. Someone describes you as inspiring. You take a screenshot because this is a moment worth remembering.

There is genuine pleasure in being recognized for something you worked hard to achieve.

The question of resume accolades or obituary accolades begins when you look beyond that moment and ask what you are organizing your life around. How much of your effort goes toward becoming someone other people admire? How much goes toward creating a loving legacy in the lives you touch?

“Resume accolades” reaches well beyond the document you send before a speaking engagement. It includes the public award, the prestigious invitation, the title people recognize, and the achievement that travels well in a social media caption. Clout belongs here too: the visibility and status that make other people pay attention.

“Obituary accolades” asks what people would remember about having known you. Someone might speak about how deeply you loved her, how you stayed beside him through a difficult season, or how your belief in her changed what she thought was possible.

You can have a room full of people impressed by you and a small circle of people profoundly grateful for you. Both forms of recognition may exist in a remarkable life. They also ask different things of your time.

What are resume accolades and obituary accolades?

Resume accolades are visible achievements pursued, at least in part, for the admiration or status they bring. Obituary accolades are the loving memories and lasting effects people carry because of your presence, care, and contribution to their lives.

The same achievement can serve both.

You might receive an award for work that made a real difference. A larger platform can bring attention to something important. A respected position can give you the authority to improve conditions for people who have had little say in them.

The achievement alone tells you very little about the motive behind it. Two women can accept the same honor while giving it very different places in their lives. One sees recognition as a welcome acknowledgment of meaningful work. Another begins arranging more and more of her decisions around receiving the next acknowledgment.

That is the tension worth examining.

You can enjoy being celebrated. You can be proud of what you built. You can want your work to be visible and fairly credited. The question is how much authority public admiration has gained over your choices.

Applause gives you a receipt

Public recognition is wonderfully easy to verify.

There is an announcement, a photograph, a certificate, or a number that went up. Someone has provided evidence that your effort counts. You can share it, save it, and revisit it on a day when the work feels particularly difficult.

A loving legacy offers less efficient paperwork.

Nobody sends an engraved plaque because your daughter knows she can tell you something embarrassing. There is no black-tie dinner for remembering to call a friend after the rest of the world assumed she was fine.

If life had an accounting department, public recognition would arrive with itemized receipts while love would be trying to explain where thirty years of ordinary Tuesdays went.

The difference makes visible achievements easy to prioritize. A deadline comes with consequences you can see. An award application has a closing date. A relationship can appear to have more time available, especially when the person loves you enough to understand.

She understands this week. He understands this season. You plan to be more present after the next major thing is finished.

Each individual choice may be reasonable. The pattern deserves attention because the next visible milestone can always make a persuasive case for going first.

The life you intend to return to keeps being asked to wait.

The audience can quietly become part of the goal

Imagine considering an opportunity that would look excellent in your bio. It also requires several evenings a month, travel you are lukewarm about, and work you would have little interest in doing without the title attached.

You may still have good reasons to accept it. But it helps to distinguish the opportunity itself from the pleasure of other people knowing you were chosen.

Clout can influence that distinction quietly. You picture the announcement before you picture the ordinary Tuesday six months into the commitment. You consider how the role will sound when someone introduces you before considering whether you want to live the schedule it creates.

You may be making a decision about a life while imagining a caption.

Self-determination theory offers a useful way to understand this pull. Its research distinguishes aspirations such as meaningful relationships, personal growth, and contribution from aspirations centered on fame, image, and wealth. The research synthesis published by the Center for Self-Determination Theory describes poorer well-being when external aspirations take priority over goals that satisfy needs for connection, competence, and choice. [1]

That finding does not make an award unhealthy or a well-paid role shallow. The relative priority of goals matters. It also cannot tell you what your next decision should be.

It gives you a reason to examine whether the pursuit of being admired is repeatedly displacing experiences you value for their own sake.

A useful private question is: would I still want to do this if nobody could know I had done it?

Some opportunities would become even more appealing without the publicity. Others would lose much of their attraction. Both answers give you information you can use.

Women should be allowed to enjoy recognition

For accomplished women, this conversation needs room for the reality that visible credit can matter.

If you have done consequential work, having your name attached to it can affect who listens to you, which opportunities reach you, and whether other people recognize the scope of your contribution. Wanting that acknowledgment can be entirely reasonable.

Women in the Workplace 2025, published by McKinsey and LeanIn.Org, found that women received less career support than men, including at senior levels. Among vice presidents and above, 66 percent of women reported having sponsors, compared with 72 percent of men. The report concerns corporate employees and does not establish the same pattern among founders. [2]

Against that backdrop, advice to stop caring about recognition can sound suspiciously like another request to do valuable work quietly.

A September 25, 2026 Lean In research article also describes meaningful work as part of how young women understand professional success. Its findings come from interviews with 150 people in the U.S. workforce, rather than a representative study of established women leaders. It offers current context for a broader question about what ambition is meant to create. [3]

A woman can want her work recognized and want a life whose meaning reaches beyond that recognition.

She can also define a loving legacy without accepting permanent responsibility for everybody else. Love may include honesty, limits, and decisions another person dislikes. A leader can care deeply about people while expecting them to carry their responsibilities. A mother can love her family and have ambitions that require time away from home.

The obituary question should give you a clearer view of what you value. It should leave room for the whole woman whose life you are considering.

People remember what your attention made possible

A loving legacy is built through experiences people can recall.

For example, imagine a woman who gives an emerging leader a consequential opportunity. She takes time to understand how that person thinks, offers useful guidance, and uses her influence to make sure the contribution receives credit. Years later, that person may remember her as the woman who saw what she could become and helped her get there.

The award for developing talent may be well deserved. The relationship contains the part a certificate cannot explain.

Imagine a founder whose friend is going through a painful transition. The founder cannot fix the situation. She keeps calling after the first wave of support has faded, remembers what her friend told her, and makes room to hear the answer when she asks how things are going.

That friend experiences something that requires no public acknowledgment to matter.

These are hypothetical examples, but they make the distinction practical. Your legacy becomes tangible in what people experience repeatedly: the attention you give, the promises you keep, the truth you are willing to tell, and the opportunities your influence creates.

Behavioral Leadership asks how those choices shape the way people respond to you. Someone who trusts you may tell you what you need to hear while there is still time to act. Someone whose judgment you have taken seriously may become more willing to use it. Your care can have consequences that continue beyond the conversation where it began.

You do not need to make yourself indispensable for that to happen. Some of your most lasting contributions may help people live and lead with less dependence on you.

Put the people back into the picture

Choose one visible achievement you are currently pursuing. Write down what you expect it to give you, including the honest appeal of being recognized.

Then consider whose life you hope will be better because you pursued it. Perhaps the answer includes your own life. Perhaps it includes your family, the people you lead, or a community you care about. Give the answer enough detail that you can tell whether the achievement is serving it.

Next, think of someone you love whose time with you has become easy to postpone.

Look at what has been receiving the hours you meant to give that relationship. Some of it may be necessary. Some may be meaningful work you would choose again. Some may be a commitment whose strongest attraction is how it looks from the outside.

You can assess the trade without condemning your ambition.

Make one specific change. Call the person you keep thinking about while telling yourself you will call later. Protect an evening you have allowed to become available to whoever asks first. Offer the thoughtful introduction that would help someone whose work you believe in, even though your name will never appear in the outcome.

The change needs to give something important a real place in your life. A vague intention to be more present will struggle against a calendar full of commitments that already have dates.

You might also decide to pursue the achievement with different conditions. Accept the role and limit the travel. Apply for the award and stop checking the response every hour. Share the accomplishment, enjoy the congratulations, and give the people around you your attention when the celebration ends.

You are choosing how recognition fits into a life that already contains other things worth protecting.

The loving legacy is already being lived

An obituary is written at the end of a life. The experiences that give it meaning are happening now.

Someone already knows what your love feels like. Someone is learning from how you use your influence. Someone remembers a moment you may have forgotten because it changed the way she saw herself.

You may never know the full reach of those moments. They may produce no announcement and very little visible proof. Their value exists in the lives receiving them.

When you consider the next accolade, look beyond the moment when other people hear about it. Picture the life it asks you to live and the people who will live alongside you.

Let that picture have a say in the decision.

A meaningful achievement can deserve your effort. So can a loving contribution that nobody applauds. Give each the time and attention you want to be able to say you gave it.

If the question of resume accolades or obituary accolades has prompted you to examine your influence, the Women’s Leadership Assessment offers a place to reflect on how you lead and how people respond. Use that reflection to connect what you value with the choices people experience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sherice Pagel

Behavioral Leadership Expert

Sherice Pagel is a keynote speaker and Behavioral Leadership expert specializing in how human behavior shapes influence, trust, resistance, and commitment. A 10-year U.S. Army veteran with 15 years of keynote speaking experience, she works with leaders to better understand the people they lead and create greater buy-in without relying on authority, pressure, or politics.

• 10-Year U.S. Army Veteran
• 15 Years of International Keynote Speaking Experience
• Fortune 500 Leadership Coach
• Robbins-Madanes Certified Strategic Intervention Coach
• Certified Maxwell Leadership Coach
• Harvard Business School Online Certified
• Founder, Pagel Leadership Group
• Creator of the Behavioral Leadership Methodology

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