Do you take time to celebrate your victories?
Here are 4 reasons you should.
Planning. Setting goals. Charging forward to achieve them.
That’s SO my thing.
Pausing to celebrate the victories.
Ummmmm...
I have to confess - I’m TERRIBLE at this. 🙃 I love achieving my goals but don't often pause to celebrate them as I should.
After all, we set our goals with an expectation that we would achieve them.
Of course we got there!
And who has time to stop and celebrate? I still have action items and to-dos written in my planner.
Check it off and move on to the next thing. Right? (Please tell me I’m not the only one. 😬)
Why should we pause to celebrate our achievements?
First, celebrating moves us closer to future accomplishments.
In our desire to move ahead to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing and get the ultimate "thing" done, we may not even consider what a celebration would look like.
Celebration is important for 2 reasons:
- It increases our satisfaction.
- It gives us momentum to achieve our ultimate goal.
We are going to have some hiccups, roadblocks or even failures along the way. If we don't stop to celebrate our victories, the mistakes can seem much larger in our minds than they actually are.
Taking time to celebrate our wins gives us mental markers & milestones of victory to balance out our failures.
Second, pausing to celebrate gives us time to review what
is working.
Y'all know I love college football & since we're deep into football season a coaching analogy seems appropriate.
When a football team loses a game the coaching team analyzes the strategy, the plays, the performance - everything about the game.
Guess what they do when they win... the same thing! The coaches and players want to repeat their success and achieve future wins.
They study their success so that they can repeat it.
Celebrating our victories along the way helps us pay attention to what's working.
Third, celebrating our victories helps reinforce why we wanted to achieve this goal.
When we determine and design our goals, we usually have a feeling tied to the achievement. We anticipate some type of joyful feeling - success, satisfaction, happiness - once we achieve the goal.
Yes, we want to reach our goals but that doesn't mean that we are motivated every. single. day. As we enjoy our achievements we are reminded why we desired them in the first place.
The joy of reaching our milestones (or mini-goals) gives us energy to keep going on the days when we're apprehensive, tired, frustrated or just don't want to.
When we don't recognize the importance of celebration, we might actually sabotage our goals & rob ourselves of the energy that comes from joyful satisfaction.
Celebrating our milestones and wins gives us energy for future success.
Fourth, celebrating yourself helps you celebrate others.
When we are discouraged that can spill over into our experiences with those around us. We aren't angry or frustrated with them but our encounters still leave them feeling negative.
The same thing (but with a positive effect) can be true of celebrating success. In our joy and excitement of achieving our goals, we encourage and celebrate those around us.
Our joy and excitement in achieving our goals spills over to those around us.
Some final thoughts:
- You enjoy celebrating the successes of others. They might want to do the same for you - don't be ashamed of or hide your success.
- If you are worried that celebrating yourself and your accomplishments seems selfish, consider that it could be a form of self-care.
Pausing for rest, reflection and celebration can be critical to your performance and future success.
Y'all have a great week!
Renee'
