personal achievement essay examples

Essay About Achievements: Top 5 Examples and 6 Prompts

Are you having problems writing your essay about achievements? Then, continue reading this article for samples and prompts to guide you in your writing.

Achievement influences our expectations and self-growth. It’s also often connected with an individual’s progress in life. It gives way for recognition in attaining a goal through standards. 

Achievement acknowledges successes, productiveness, and involvement. But sometimes, achieving doesn’t result in a feeling of satisfaction. Writing an achievement essay is usually based on experiences from yourself or others. You can explore different viewpoints, such as what they consider an “achievement,” how to overcome weaknesses, or why they want a specific achievement. Below are 5 examples and 6 writing prompts to assist you in your essay:

1. The Greatest Achievements In Life by Gerard Reese

2. greatest professional or academic achievement by james taylor , 3. essay on achievements from my professional life by bdoan, 4. my accomplishment by taylor wood, 5. when my weakness became my greatest accomplishment by jay merrill logan, 6 writing prompts on essay about achievements, 1. ways to achieve within different settings, 2. achievements in the small things, 3. how to build confidence, 4. the power of overcoming fear, 5. steps to be successful, 6. guide to building a strong character.

“Nobody succeeds on the first try, we take our mistakes and learn from them. Mistakes are the things that help us strive for greatness, which is why failure should not be viewed as something negative, but more as something we can use to attain [what] we want in life.”

Reese’s piece on achievement talks about learning from failure and trying again until you reach success. Time and failure are contributors to our achievements. He emphasizes that failure can be a steward and teacher to help us get where we want to be. He also provides lists of individuals who encountered crises in their lives until they reached their most successful phases. 

“My father always instilled in me the importance of education. He knew very well that in order for his children to be successful he needed to set them up for success and place them in a position where we would be afforded the opportunity to succeed.”

Family significantly impacts one’s interpretation of what achievements are about. Taylor’s essay highlights the idea of what his father taught him about education and success. He mentions how he embarked through life while keeping his father’s acknowledgment of his potential in the field he has chosen. His essay shows that family shapes one’s belief about what’s considered a successful life.

“I consider the experience in Japan as a big achievement and an important step in my career. The fact that I could master the complex situation gave me much self-confidence and showed that I could manage people successfully even in difficult situations. Today, this unique ability of handling teams attributed me as a strong leader for my people.”

Bdoan’s essay focuses on past experiences and how she handled cultural differences and beliefs, leading to her successful professional life. To achieve fulfillment in work, she breaks the barrier, communicates effectively, and embraces Japanese culture, which she set as a significant setting stone in her career life.

“Through the influence of my best friend, I have motivated myself to spend two hours during the night before I go to sleep to master the lessons the teacher has discussed in class. This helped me greatly since I would no longer have to cram and study everything for the exams later.”

Wood’s essay highlights the external factors that contributed to his achievements. External factors can lead a person to success or frustration. Through a piece of great advice, he changed his lifestyle by allowing himself to move forward and build a quality life. He compares this to Newton’s First law of motion, which he quoted and put at the beginning of his essay.

“…the more I thought about my own greatest personal academic achievement, I realized it was simply getting an A in a college history class my freshman year. Succeeding in this upper-level history class set the tone for all my future college courses and gave me the confidence I needed to achieve greatness, and I am not even a history major.”

Logan talks about his worst subject, History. He recounts how he approached his professor and overcame his weakness. This essay points out that words from others can influence self-growth and confidence. He says he developed faith in his study during college and attained his most outstanding accomplishment.

Are you having problems connecting your ideas smoothly? See this guide on transition words for essays.

After reading through the samples above, it’s time to explore your desired achievement subjects. Here are six prompts about achievements you can use:

Everyone sets expectations for themselves, dependent on the environment they’re in. It can be at work, school, or home. In these cases, the result is just as important as the process.

You can focus your essay on a relatable viewpoint, such as a student who wants to get A+ grades or an office worker who wants to get the Employee of the Month Award. Discuss ways they can excel in their surroundings. Your essay will serve as a guide to help them grow personally and professionally.

Achievements don’t need to be grand. Sometimes, simply getting out of bed is an achievement, especially for those suffering from mental illnesses such as depression. Center your essay on the simple things that can be considered achievements in their way. 

Your essay will not only serve as a reminder that it’s essential to appreciate the small things. It will also comfort those who are going through a hard time.

This topic asks you to highlight the relationship between confidence and achievements. You can interview someone confident in themselves. Ask for tips on building confidence and relay them to your readers while explaining the opportunities they can get by believing in themselves more.

In this busy world, fear is one of the most significant setbacks for people in accomplishing their goals in life. In this essay, you can explain to your readers how acknowledging their fears will help them advance.  

You can also conceptualize the effect of anxiety in achieving your desires and help you set your standard in developing self-growth. Feel free to share your experience with fears and how you plan to deal with them.

To be successful is everyone’s goal. However, sharing steps and tips on how to achieve success is general prompt many writes about. To make your piece stand out, you can tailor it to a group of individuals. For example, a student’s image of success is going on stage and graduating with honors.

Someone’s character is critical to achieving achievements. You can write about a well-known individual who went against the usual route of how success is reached. Such as Steve Jobs, who founded Apple but was a college dropout. 

There are many ways to reach a goal. Tell your readers that they don’t need to follow the conventional method of accomplishing things to get their hands on the achievements they crave.

Do you want to be more confident with your writing? Here are 11 essay writing tips you need to learn today!

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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10 personal achievements examples that can inspire yours

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What are personal achievements?

Why highlight your personal achievements, 10 examples of achievements for a resume, how to highlight accomplishments in a resume or job interview, use strong language, don’t sell yourself short.

Hiring managers are busy people. Between back-to-back meetings, endless emails, and negotiating offers, it’s no wonder they spend only seven seconds reviewing a job seeker’s resume . 

If the resume they’re reading happens to be yours, it better stand out . A great CV should quickly show recruiters why you’re the best candidate for the job by being short, well-organized, and tailored to the position to which you’re applying.

And most importantly, it should be more than a list of previous job descriptions. It should highlight your track record of successes and achievements.

Listing your greatest achievements shows potential employers you can produce great outcomes for them because you’ve done it before. Whether you improved customer satisfaction rates or exceeded sales expectations, highlighting your accomplishments shows you value hard work and follow through on your commitments.

And don’t stick to just professional accomplishments, either — your personal ones have the same effect. As long as they relate to the job at hand, personal milestones add to a recent graduate’s otherwise sparse CV or complement a seasoned professional’s diverse work experience. 

But you should be strategic with the accomplishments you choose to highlight. You want to use them to demonstrate transferable skills, experiences, or personal qualities that aren’t obvious in the rest of your document. 

To better understand how to accomplish this, let’s take a look at these ten personal achievement examples. Hopefully, you can use them to inspire your own.

Generally, an achievement is any previous success you’re proud of. This means anything from raising a family to earning a degree or overcoming a chronic illness. But when it comes to your CV, only highlight achievements that:

• Demonstrate your capacity to do the job at hand 
• Are based on specific, measurable results.

For example, a strong professional achievement could involve writing a new sales pitch at work that lead to a 50% increase in deals over your first year.

Personal achievements are, as the name suggests, successes in your personal life. These can include anything from building a house to running the Boston Marathon. In the context of your resume or a job interview, they should demonstrate your ability to:

• Solve a problem. Managers want employees who can think critically and address organizational problems. Your personal mission to install an extra speed bump on your street shows that you’re able to identify problems (like dangerous driving) and take steps to address them.
• Overcome a challenge. A defeatist mentality will surely lead to defeat. Personal achievements like running a marathon help prove your grit and can-do attitude to prospective employers.
• Realize your goals. If you can achieve your personal goals , you can achieve professional ones . A fundraiser organized for your local recreation center shows you can set a target and make a plan to hit it.

The personal achievements on your CV would shine even brighter if you won an award or some form of recognition for them. Mentioning a prize in your job application isn’t boastful but instead shows that others recognize your contribution.

An award in community service proves your commitment and actions had a noticeable benefit on your collaborators and neighbors.

Your first instinct might be to exclude your personal achievements from a job application. Why should your personal life have any bearing on your professional one? But in reality, accomplishments outside of your day job can help you through the recruitment process. They can:

• Help you land a job interview . Managers want employees with a track record of getting things done. Your list of achievements shows you’re more than capable of moving projects across the finish line.
• Facilitate a career change. Personal side hustles help sharpen new skills before transitioning into a new job. If you currently write social media content but would rather produce SEO blog posts, freelancing as a part-time blog writer helps you gain experience before applying for full-time roles. Plus, a personal Instagram account with several thousand followers proves you’re doing something right. 
• Land your first job after college. As a recent graduate, you may not have professional accomplishments to share yet. In this scenario, your personal and academic achievements become much more important. A person elected to student government or named to the Dean’s List every year of study will stand out from someone who coasted through their degree without doing much else.

You should be strategic when choosing achievements to put on a resume. Your personal accomplishments should highlight soft skills or hard skills you’ll use to fulfill job responsibilities. Your selections should also focus on results within a recent time frame, usually from the last year.

Here are some examples:

• Learned a new language. Not only is this a strong display of personal discipline, but it also can be useful for working with multi-lingual colleagues or clients.
• Earned a top GPA in a highly technical college program. Applying for your first job out of school is difficult. But acing your technical courses show you have the hard skills to be a great new employee.
• Launched a part-time freelance business or consultancy to develop new skills. This demonstrates an entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to self-development — valuable assets when applying to a role. 
• Organized an event to raise money for charity. Fundraisers are complicated affairs that involve a lot of people. This accomplishment demonstrates your teamwork and skills as a project manager .
• Earned a new degree or certification while working full-time. Returning to school as an adult requires commitment and hard work. Adding a new degree to your LinkedIn profile can help you earn a new job title later. 
• Helped a not-for-profit overcome its financial troubles. Pro bono work for other organizations helps establish you as a leader in your field and community.
• Traveled abroad to conduct academic research. International research requires funding. Plane tickets aren’t cheap, so your funders must have thought your study was important.
• Won a community service award for your volunteer hours. Awards are how groups recognize important people. Earning one for your community service shows you you know how to make an impact.
• Gave career advice to young professionals. Mentorship is an essential skill for a leader . Helping someone fulfill their potential can line you up for a manager job .
• Spoke on panels discussing issues facing your profession. Participating in industry conferences as a panelist or keynote speaker shows you’re a leader in your field.

Once you know the successes you want to highlight, you’ll have to learn how to talk about your achievements. For example, professional triumphs should pepper the Work Experience section of your resume.

And under each item, instead of simply listing your job responsibilities, list your biggest achievements in the role — “I exceeded sales targets every quarter since I started the position” sounds more impressive than  “I was responsible for meeting quarterly sales targets.”

However, personal accomplishments may not fit nicely in your “Work experience” section, meaning they’ll need their own headings elsewhere in the document:

• Education and certificates. Here you can list all of your academic achievements and professional certifications.
• Conferences. In this section, highlight the events where you gave a speech or sat on a panel. Even attending conferences might count if you participated in meaningful workshops or heard powerful lectures.

• Volunteer work. List fundraising activities or community service hours here.
• Extracurriculars. For the recent graduates among you, list your involvement in student government, college sports teams, or other kinds of clubs.
• Languages. Here you can mention the languages you know and the level at which you can write and speak them. 

You can also highlight your biggest achievements in your cover letter . Describing your involvement in key successes will set you apart from other candidates and make a good first impression on your recruiter.

Everywhere you mention your accomplishments, whether in your cover letter or your CV, make sure to use strong action verbs like “learned,” “delivered,” and “launched.” These words help connect you to the outcome, showing how your involvement led to the desired results. 

Here’s an example of weak language: “We organized an event that helped generate revenue for the hospital.” 

Here, we can’t tell how you contributed to the team. Even if you played a central role, this statement fails to demonstrate it to the reader.

Let’s word it differently: “I planned and executed a fundraiser for the hospital, which generated almost $4000 for patient care.”

Now we know our involvement in the project (planning and execution) and what impact it had (raised $4000 for patient care). This is much clearer and more impressive for the reader.

When creating your own ten personal achievement examples, remember the cardinal rule: focus on results. You want your employer to connect the dots between you and a positive outcome. Make it easy for them by detailing your successes .

Talk about how you woke up a 5 am every morning to train for a triathlon, sacrificed your Saturdays to mentor at-risk youth, or spent your evenings studying Spanish. Over time, these accomplishments add up. They should not only make you proud, but they’ll also make someone proud to hire you.

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Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

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August 8, 2022

Writing a Powerful Leadership/Achievement Essay [Sample Essay]

Essays that ask you to write about significant achievements fall under the category of

what are known as behavioral or experiential questions . The basic assumption behind these questions is that past behavior is a great predictor of future behavior . They are all varieties on the theme of “Tell us about a time when you…” These questions are meant to take the measure of your managerial potential.

Let’s look at how one candidate effectively addressed this essay question from  Stanford GSB  (*this question is not from the current application):

Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization.

This writer avoids writing about leadership in any generic way and zeroes in on the specific aspects of his contributions and their impact:

Leadership essay example: The Change Agent

When I was invited to become the Vice President and General Manager at Third Way Associates (TWA)* two years ago, the company was in financial and administrative disorder. Employee retention was poor, and TWA took too long to pay vendors because of poor communication and accounting processes. Cash flow was managed based on immediate needs rather than by the logic of budgets planned by project and city. Sloppy expense reports that were turned in with no receipts were reimbursed to employees.

TWA founders Scott W ____ and Glenn L ____ had good intentions, but spent most of their time selling sponsorships and getting new clients rather than directing and managing the company. As we begin 20XX, TWA is much healthier in every way. Under my direction, vendors are paid in an average of 20 days from date of invoice, instead of 60 days or more. Our cash flow is better administered since I introduced very specific detailed area budgets with over 125 budget lines per city. Because I can give the company founders much better stability and macromanagement vision, the three of us are able to look more to the future rather than simply put out fires.

Despite the difficult economy in 20XX, we not only retained our same clients but also signed several new client agreements for three years or more, including a two-year contract with Big Shoe Company worth $1.3 million. I’ve brought fresh accounts and industries into TWA, including ____ Airlines and Drink Y, among others. Combined, these accounts generated more than $500,000 in 20XX, and we estimate close to $1 million dollars in the following year.

Since my arrival, we have a much wider and broader sales menu which has been crucial to generate more revenue. I’ve expanded our most popular sports events to 25 cities, giving our clients new investment opportunities. These events range from recreational soccer clinic tours to professional soccer games broadcast on TV.

I also expanded our field staff, and at present we have 25 strong and reliable managers who report directly to me from each city. Despite the economy, 20XX was not a bad year for TWA, and this year promises to be even better if we continue our current strategy and continue to work as a team.

Leadership essay analysis

In every paragraph, this writer mentions concrete measures he took to introduce order to a chaotic company that was trying to grow. From instituting budgets with line items, an improved accounts payable system, and recruiting additional big-name accounts, the writer proves how his efforts strengthened the organization.

How can you maximize on your thought leadership experiences?

As you choose among your own experiences as essay material, think about these questions to help you frame answers of substance:

• What was the obstacle, challenge, or problem that you solved in this accomplishment? A tight client deadline? A complex merger transaction? A new product launch amidst fierce competition?
• What did you do to rise to the challenge you are writing about? Motivate your team to work overtime? Sell senior management on the deal’s long-term upside? Identify a marketing profile for your product that no competitor can match?
• What facts demonstrate that your intervention created a happy ending? Did your team submit the project deliverables three days early despite being 20% understaffed? Your client approved the $500 million merger, the largest ever in its industry? Your new product has 20% market share after only one year? What was the impact of your leadership?

Don’t forget about your people leadership skills

What we’ve spoken about until this point revolves mostly on skilled problem-solving, or “thought leadership.” But respected businesspeople need to be equally or even more talented at something we didn’t have a formal name for: people leadership. By effectively leading the thinking of client firms’ problems as well as motivating them to work long hours to develop solutions to these problems and collaborate with clients on implementing them, these businesspeople prove to have what it takes to be exemplary leaders.

So don’t forget to include strong elements of people leadership in your essays. Here are several to keep in mind:

• Rallying others around a vision. Did you convince your team or group to follow a specific path/solution? How did you do it? Successful clients have talked about handling dissenting opinions diplomatically or presenting their teams’ detailed quantitative evidence for a recommendation. The more you can show that you understood your audience and tailored the content and form of your message to them, the better.
• Harnessing others’ strengths – and expanding them. Did you provide team members tasks they could handle comfortably based on their capabilities, as well as opportunities to broaden their skills? For example, you may have handed your quant jock teammate the most complicated operations analysis as well as responsibility for leading a key client meeting. In this way, you leverage teammates’ strengths while helping them develop new ones.
• Getting through tough times. Did you model for your team enviable cool in pressure-cooker situations, maybe helping them keep the big-picture goal in mind or lightening the mood with humor? Did you reward teammates with praise, pizza, or both for working long into the night? Did you pitch in on others’ responsibilities as deadlines loomed? Helping your team handle stress while managing your own is a cornerstone of strong leadership.

Use your words

Another tip: Look for opportunities to incorporate strong verbs that illustrate your strengths in these areas. Good examples of leadership might incorporate several of the following:

• Establishing a goal or vision
• Obtaining buy-in
• Taking responsibility

The old adage, “Show, don’t tell,” remains a classic bit of wisdom in the writing process. Make that a guiding principle not only in your leadership/achievement essays, but throughout your application.

For personalized advice tailored just for you, check out our MBA Admissions Consulting & Editing services and work one-on-one with a pro who will help you discover your competitive advantage and use it to get accepted.

Related Resources:

• School-Specific MBA Application Essay Tips • Tone Up Your Writing: Confidence vs Arrogance • “I’m Smart, Really I Am!” Proving Character Traits in Your Essays

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