Are you the kind of business owner who celebrates and savors everything you achieve? Or do you meet a goal and quickly move on to the next thing? Or maybe a combination of the two?
Early in my business, I used to skip celebrating altogether. When something good happened, I had habit of marking it with a half-hearted “Great,” before quickly moving on to the next item on the to-do list.
I became accustomed to hitting a goal and then immediately setting the bar higher for myself. It wasn’t until my mentor encouraged me (read: made it a mandatory part of my process) to celebrate that I started to really explore why it’s so valuable.
We can likely all agree that rushing through what we’re doing, or multitasking (ie. splicing on energy and focus), produces so-so results. The same thing can be said for finishing a project without crossing off a crucial final step: celebrating.
If you skip the celebration, you’ll be hard pressed to realize your success, notice the progress you’re making, and pivot on challenges in the future.
What Can You Celebrate In Your Business?
There are three categories of celebration:
- Accomplishments
- Progress
- Failures
1. Accomplishments
When you’ve successfully climbed to the top of a “goal mountain” and made it over the peak, it might be time for a living room dance party or to pop that bottle of “special” champagne to celebrate.
Celebrating when things go well might feel pretty natural, but if you’re a Type-A overachiever who has the tendency to move the bar still higher, this will be important for you.
Setting small milestones and celebrating your progress is essential to feeling like what you’re doing is valuable, worthwhile, and actually consistently moving you in the right direction.
Making a big deal out of a little accomplishment brings all kinds of positive energy into your body and helps you really feel it. Taking note of the feelings helps integrate the accomplishment into body and soul, and further builds an “evidence list” that the outcome of putting in focused effort is truly worth it.
Try it! Rather than allowing a shrug in response to a job well done, let your body feel into the accomplishment.
The best part, you can call on that feeling of accomplishment, pull the feeling and the visualization of how good that celebration felt anytime you need a boost. It’s part of how you can learn to manifesting your goals with ease.
JOURNAL PROMPTS FOR MORE EXPLORATION:
- What kinds of accomplishments do you celebrate in your business and life?
- Do you give yourself enough credit for being awesome? Do you let your accomplishments pass you by with little acknowledgement?
- What would it feel like to let yourself savor your accomplishments?
ACTION STEP:
- Generate a list of ways that YOU can celebrate your accomplishments, big, small, and in between.
2. Progress
I believe celebrating progress is essential.
It lets us see not only how far we’ve come, but it lets us measure where we’re heading in relation to our original plans and goals. It also provides an essential opportunity to course correct if you realize things might be headed a bit off target.
The only way to know when it’s time to pause and celebrate inside of a longer term project is to have milestones along the way that are designed for reflection, which consequently is a great way to make sure larger projects stay on track.
Pausing to recognize what’s going well will give you a chance to see how far you’ve come on the journey. Even if you feel like you haven’t made much progress toward one of your larger goals, or if you need to realign some pieces, you’ll gain clarity and perspective as you celebrate. I can absolutely assure you that you have.
JOURNAL PROMPTS FOR MORE EXPLORATION:
- When was the last time you wrote a list of all the places you’ve made progress in your life or business? Do it now so you can see how much you’re accomplishing! Unfinished projects totally count here.
- What have you moved toward in your business that’s only happening because you’re making slow and steady progress?
- Where are you growing as a leader and business owner?
- What kinds of things can you do now that you couldn’t do a few days, weeks, months ago?
3. Failures
Your failures are worth celebrating.
Period. End of story.
When something doesn’t work out, it can feel really terrible. But failure at something actually marks an important beginning – the learning process and growing opportunity that comes from making a new start to try again is worth marking.
Maybe the celebration wan’t and that is an opportunity worth celebrating.
In fact, going through a rough patch can do a few things for you.
It makes you more resilient
The next time you face a downturn, you can call on this moment as a reminder that you’ve made it through other periods of difficulty. It allows you to recall a time when you faced challenging circumstances and navigated through them.
It provides raw materials for your solutions
While I’m not saying you can’t have a minute or two to be upset, I am encouraging you to look at all aspects of the situation and creatively problem solve as soon as you can. There’s always a solution if you’re willing to analyze without judgement.
It helps you learn
If you’re willing to be honest about your failures, they can give you perspective. You’ll find compassion for yourself, and, sometimes, they’re the gateway to the next big adventure.
Success Tip: Instead of getting upset with yourself, use your failures as an opportunity to get curious.
JOURNAL PROMPTS FOR MORE EXPLORATION:
- When did you face a difficult time that you thought you couldn’t overcome? What did you do? How did the situation resolve?
- What did you learn from your last mistake or mis-step?
- When have you had to creatively problem solve in the past? What happened?
- Has there ever been a time when you could not come to an agreeable solution? What did you learn from that experience?
Success Tip: Even if you have a disappointing week, there’s something in your journey worth celebrating.
How Can You Celebrate?
Just like self care, there’s no wrong way to celebrate. It’s an incredibly personal experience that only you can say what’s right and what isn’t.
It doesn’t have to be popping a special bottle of champagne. It could be taking a long, hot bath without kids and dogs in the bathroom with you. It doesn’t have to be anything stereotypical of a celebration… or it can be!
The choice is entirely yours. Whatever feels like a juicy way to note how far you’ve come, even if it feels like you’ve taken a step back (in the case of failure), the important thing is to celebrate in a way that feels good to YOU.
Today, write down an accomplishment, a success, and a failure. Then, celebrate them! It can be tricky to find small and large ways to mark these milestones with something meaningful, especially if you don’t want to go down the drinking wine or buying yourself something nice route, but I can’t encourage you enough to add this practice into your biz and life.
To get yourself started, here’s a list of ways to celebrate:
- Dance Party in your chair, living room, car
- Open a bottle of wine and quietly savor a glass
- Get lost in a book
- Share the story with your mastermind peers. They’re often pretty awesome at celebrating your accomplishments alongside you (or even more than you do!)
- Voxer your coach to share the moment and a-ha’s you’ve gained
- Cook a nice meal that may take a little more time than usual
- Journal the success/progress/accomplishment so you can hold onto evidence that things are working
- Buy a piece of jewelry, handbag, plant, etc that you’ve had your eye on. Every time you look at it, you’ll be reminded that you’ve done something great
- Have an adventure alone or with others. Share a fun experience and reward yourself with quality time
So now it’s time for you to join us. Whether it’s a dance party, creating a reflective list that anchors your awareness, or sharing a failure, it’s all worth celebrating!
