What's the biggest career myth you believed until real work proved you wrong?

Ok so for me it was this idea that "if you're good at your job, people will notice and you'll get promoted eventually." Like I genuinely thought that was just... how it worked. Keep your head down, do solid work, don't make waves, and someone up top is watching and taking notes.

Yeah no. That's not a thing.

I found out the hard way after like 3 years of grinding, staying late, fixing other people's messes, never complaining. Meanwhile this dude on my team who talked about his work 10x more than he actually did it got promoted twice in the time I got promoted zero times. And it wasn't even that his work was bad, it just... existed more? People knew what he was doing. Nobody knew what I was doing because I never told anyone.

Took me way too long to realize that being good at the work and being seen as good at the work are two totally different skills, and somehow nobody tells you that the second one matters just as much (sometimes more??). I thought "self promotion" was for people who were compensating for not actually being that good. Turns out it's just... required. Like it's not optional.

Anyway now I'm trying to unlearn the "just put your head down" thing and it feels weird and kind of gross tbh, like I'm bragging. Does it stop feeling like that? Or do you just get used to it?

Curious what other myths people believed and got smacked in the face with lol, feels better knowing it's not just me.