A hype folder is a place to keep track of praise and positive feedback, so you can refer to it when you need a confidence boost.
What is it?
A hype folder is exactly what it sounds like: a place to keep track of compliments and praise… or hype! Sometimes called a ‘sunshine folder‘, it’s a digital (or physical) record of your achievements and good things people have said about you.
I call mine “BELIEVE THE HYPE” and keep a shortcut to it from my desktop so (a) it’s easy to drop new things into and (b) it’s right there for me to click into on any low-mood day.
I recently added a custom photo to make it extra hype-y. What a cheesehead.
Why have one
- It’s a place to keep track of compliments, praise and positive feedback, all in one place
- It serves as a reference for performance reviews or promotion conversations
- It can be used as a confidence boosting tool when you’re feeling down or less confident
What to put in it
I use mine for work, so it has screenshots of things like:
- Nice Slack messages people have sent me, or shoutouts in our #thanks channel
- Text messages, emails or physical cards people have written to me
- Positive feedback from performance reviews
- Big projects or achievements
- Course certificates, or anything that serves as a reminder of some new skill I’ve developed
You might also want to expand the folder to include personal items like:
- Photos of birthday cards or other nice handwritten notes
- Screenshots of nice comments from your social media accounts
- Your own written record of positive feedback you’ve heard from people (eg. written down after they’ve told you verbally)
How to do it
It’s too easy not to! You have no excuse, just:
- Create a folder. Mine is a folder in Dropbox (so that it’s backed up and saved between my devices), with an alias link from my computer desktop (AKA a shortcut to that folder).
- Give it a custom icon. You know you want to.
- Collect up any positive feedback or messages. Just something to get you started.
- Add new things as they come up over time. Try to build it as a habit.
- Refer back to it regularly. Like when you need a mood boost, or to help at review time.
Sidenote: I thought about sharing some real examples of things in my folder, but it’s a very personal thing! Trust me when I say there’s something special about having the record of things, and all in one place — on low days it’s so easy to forget the nice things people have said in the past (and sometimes even spiral towards the negative), so a hype folder is there to help remind and lift us up 🏋️
