The best coworker I ever had taught me this. Anybody can do this. This guy wasn't the person with the highest technical ability in the company, but they were the best at this one thing, and this one thing made them exponentially more successful than people with more technical skill...
Whether your boss or colleagues think you did a good job (or not) is all about expectations.
Therefore, the most important part of your success is managing other people's expectations of your work.
That's not to say your work can be shit or that you should sandbag it by setting low expectations, success is simply a matter of defining what success is and then meeting that threshold. Either way, setting those expectations is important and many people don't do it at all. Then they wonder why, regardless of what the data says, some people thought the project was successful and others think otherwise.
Whether your boss or colleagues think you did a good job (or not) is all about expectations. Therefore, the most important part of your success is managing other people's expectations of your work.
That's not to say your work can be shit or that you should sandbag it by setting low expectations, success is simply a matter of defining what success is and then meeting that threshold. Either way, setting those expectations is important and many people don't do it at all. Then they wonder why, regardless of what the data says, some people thought the project was successful and others think otherwise.