The #humblebrag. One part humble. One part brag.

OK, but let’s be honest for a minute: The #humblebrag is all about bragging.

And that’s fine. We’ve kinda all done it at this point.

You’re excited about a client win. You’re proud of a big project at work. Whatever the professional case–you want to talk about how great you are.

Who can blame you? I certainly don’t. We all want to shine in our professional lives, right? It’s just human nature.

But, when it comes to promoting ourselves online, why do we try to hide behind the #humblebrag?

Why not just, well, #brag?

The Urban Dictionary defines “humblebrag” as “Subtly letting others now about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor or “woe is me” gloss.”

I mean, I get the self-effacing angle. That’s what I try to do. I HATE talking and bragging about myself. Yet, as a independent consultant, I HAVE to do it. It’s a must. So, I tend to take the #humblebrag approach (or some form of that), because I just feel wrong bragging myself up.

But, maybe I shouldn’t.

I think about the times I see friends and colleagues use the #humblebrag. I can see what they’re doing, but it feels weird. I don’t hold it against them, but I wonder why they feel badly just talking about a great thing that happened to them?

So maybe we should just all stop feeling badly about this. Maybe we should all just exude a more self-confidence and brag about ourselves once in a while? After all, unless you’re doing it regularly, what’s the harm? Most friends and family would LOVE to hear about our personal wins. Why not just brag about them more?

So as of today, I’m putting a stake in the ground. No more #humblebrag for me. Now, it will simply be #brag. I’m going to try to follow in my friend Aaron Pearson’s footsteps here (look what he did on a Facebook post of mine a couple weeks ago above). Join me?