Become impressive accidentally through becoming effective deliberately.

Trying to be impressive means optimising for the impression, which usually costs you the substance. Trying to be effective means optimising for the result, and the impressiveness turns up afterwards without being pursued. It arrives more durably too, because it rests on something real that people can rely on rather than on a performance you must keep maintaining.

Before your next piece of work, ask which of the two you are actually aiming at. Then strip out anything you were including only because it would look good. What is left is usually shorter, clearer, and better received than the version you were about to produce.