Two demands for exactness, pointed at your public record
Two instructions arrive together here, and both are about being correct. The sign wants the work to be right and the house wants it to be seen, so your professional standing rests entirely on a record with nothing wrong in it.
That is why your reputation is durable and slow. Nothing about it depends on charm or timing, which means it cannot be damaged by either, and it also means you have been passed over more than once by somebody who was less accurate and considerably more visible.
Known for the work rather than for yourself
People in your field know the quality of what you produce and rather less about you as a person, because you have let the output do the talking on the grounds that it should be sufficient. It is not, entirely. One conversation a month with somebody senior, about anything, changes what happens when your name comes up in a room you are not in.
The promotion that removes you from the work
Advancement in your case means less of the thing you are good at and more of the thing you find draining, which is why you have hesitated more than once. That hesitation is rational and it has a price attached. Decide explicitly rather than drifting: take the step and accept the trade, or say plainly that you want depth rather than scope and then negotiate for the pay to follow the expertise instead of the headcount.
Corrected in front of people
Public criticism lands harder on you than the content warrants, because your standing is built on accuracy and an error in view feels structural. It rarely is. Ask for feedback privately, in advance, as a standing arrangement with anybody who manages you. Most of the difficulty here is about the venue rather than about the substance.
A career that was not planned
You arrived where you are by doing each thing well rather than by aiming at anything in particular, which is a real method with a ceiling built into it: nobody has ever chosen the next step deliberately, including you. Write down once what you would want to be doing in five years, in specifics. Your execution has always been excellent and it has never once been given a target to execute against.
Somebody has to say the record out loud
Your contribution is legible only to people who look closely, and the people who decide things do not look closely. Once a year, put the specifics in front of them: what you delivered, what it saved, what did not go wrong. Frame it as information rather than as advocacy. That framing is the one that lets you actually do it.
Rework is the cost nobody prices
Every organisation carries an invisible budget for things being done twice, and roles occupied by you do not draw on it. That saving is real, substantial and attributed to nobody. Work out roughly what a redo costs in your field, multiply it by the number of times it has not happened on your watch, and take that figure into the next conversation about grade.
Respected, and rarely invited
Colleagues rate you highly and think of you as work rather than as company, which is a distinction that determines who gets told about things early. Go to the thing you would normally skip, twice a year. The information that circulates in those rooms is not available anywhere else and your record cannot substitute for it.
The job that was supposed to be temporary
You took a role for practical family reasons and stayed, and the arrangement has never been formally revisited because it kept working. Put a review date on it. Circumstances that justified it a decade ago may have changed without anybody noticing, and nothing about the present arrangement is going to raise the question itself.
The standard is what actually tires you
Your working fatigue does not come from hours, it comes from holding a level of attention that most roles do not require and no employer has ever asked for. That is self-imposed and it is not therefore optional. Build recovery around cognitive load rather than around time worked, and take a whole day where nothing needs checking.