I don’t know the type of relationship you have with your manager so my advice may not help. But I have quite a candid friendship with mine. So when we have our 1-on-1s I literally spend the first 20 minutes reminding him how smart I am. I keep a small list of projects I’ve worked on, level of effort I put into it, things I accomplished and then basically review that with him but make sure I embellish everything. You have to sell yourself. And you have to remember you’re not their only minion. You have to make sure you stay fresh and relevant in their mind.

And just be cheesy about it if you have to. I constantly remind my boss how awesome I am. Bump into him in the hallway and he asks how things are going? I usually respond with something along the lines of “Doing solid work so your bonus is a little better this year.” Or “Being awesome as usual.”

But that’s just the relationship we have. So maybe you can just slowly introduce a more casual mindset with your managers. Then it doesn’t seem like bragging, it’s just you being candid and open.