This is What Happens When You Celebrate Every Win
Why even the small victories need to be celebrated.
A life well-lived is a purposeful one, complete with goals and dreams to be accomplished. We work hard on these goals daily and celebrate the major successes along the way. We find ways to keep going after the things we know that we desire until they are ours.
On that journey, however, smaller victories often get crowded out. We either look at an overall success or see a failure to accomplish. We don’t think about the milestones that occur along the way and rarely think about the lessons we learn until after everything is done.
Learning occurs primarily in day to day events. It’s important to pay attention to the lessons we are learning by our sprints and measures to accomplish the goals. It’s also important to celebrate the milestones.
Celebrate the smaller steps: when you get into a publication, when you pay off your first credit card, the eight month anniversary with your significant other. All of these are worth celebrating even if they are not the end goal, just steps along the way.
Celebrations don’t have to be showy “look at how awesome I am” attempts either. It can simply be taking yourself out to dinner, buying a piece of clothing you’ve wanted for a while, or just allowing the energy to flow through you as you celebrate.
Here’s why you should celebrate each small win:
You attract more of what you focus on
When you choose to focus on victory, you attract victory. You set yourself up mentally for the next finish line and powers you up. Celebrating that you have accomplished your goal reminds you that you’ve done this once and you will do it again. It also allows for a small break to refocus.
It gives you a chance to be thankful
Gratitude is a key in life for unlocking doors and allowing for you to reflect on what made this possible. You start to see the inconveniences that you may have encountered to come this far as the opportunities that helped you succeed.
You begin to remember those who helped you along the way. You feel both inward and outward gratitude for how far you’ve made it. You begin to realize that you’re not alone in this journey and that helps when setting up your next goal.
It reminds you of life lessons and allows you to put them into play
Instead of waiting until the end, you can pause now to think about what you’ve been learning so far. This may or may not directly relate to your goal.
For example, while working on a savings goal, you may think of how much having a capsule wardrobe or downsizing and selling have meant to you and helped. Or with writing, it might be that you’re learning to put yourself out there and that the worst that can happen is someone says no, the best thing that can happen? They love your work and want to see more of it.
Reminder: it is perfectly normal to be honest about any struggle you might have while working for your goal and the fact that this goal may have been the hardest thing you have had to do.
It takes great sacrifice to reach many of our goals, which is why knowing your why and what you’re willing to sacrifice is often in the planning stages of a goal.
While advocating for presenting a balanced picture if you share your journey, I am also advocating for taking time to celebrate your work.
Remember to celebrate when you’ve done what you once thought was impossible. You will get to the end of that marathon but take time to celebrate, pause, and reflect each time you hit that milestone.
