Don’t Forget To Celebrate Your Victories

Create memories that last a lifetime

When was the last time you succeeded at something? I am not talking about a big achievement, I mean just moving the pile forward.

We often take our victories for granted using self-talk like, “It’s no big deal,” or “Anyone could have done that.” However, these achievements are worth celebrating. As you progress towards your bigger goals, make new achievements and embrace novel experiences, taking some time to congratulate yourself creates positive imagery that will help you to generate more success.

Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture… Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.

Norman Vincent Peale

Don’t Take Victories for Granted

As you make progress in life and reach new heights you may find it easy to forget that you were not always as nimble and skilled as you are now. The advanced skills you have acquired seem easy now, but were not on first attempts. Back then you struggled and felt that you would never add these skills and abilities to your arsenal. Now that you have the aptitude and the altitude, you expect that everyone else can do those things with ease too. This is a fallacy that could lead to trouble when setting expectations. By celebrating your accomplishments you are adding a memory and positive image that will serve you well down the road when you consider how you got to the heights you will enjoy.

I remember when I was about 6 or 7 years old and I looked down and thought to myself, “It is kind of far from here to the ground!”

Looking at your achievements and life progress with wonder helps you to appreciate all that it has taken to get where you are. You realize and appreciate what you are capable of accomplishing if you put your mind and heart to it. Therefore, never lose sight of what it took to achieve that goal, whether it is one you achieved in a day or it took several years to realize.

If your self-talk sounds something like, “Wow! I can’t believe I was able to do that. It is such an awesome feeling.” Next time it will be a lot easier, and you are going to attract more success.

One way to recognize your milestones is with a clear vision of where you want to go and what you want to achieve. Doing this will enhance your ability to see the achievements and major accomplishments. Taking some time to praise your efforts at those points will propel you to the next stage of the journey with enhanced enthusiasm as you see your dreams turning into reality.

When you have struggled with something and you finally succeed, there is a big difference in how you will view challenges in the future depending on your response to finally getting over the hump. If you say something negative to yourself such as: “Why am I so slow to figure this out? I must be really dumb.” You are attaching negative thoughts and energy to new challenges, making you want to avoid them, and pushing the prize further from your grasp.

On the other hand, if your self-talk is positive and sounds like: “Wow! I can’t believe I was able to do that. It is such an awesome feeling.” Then the next time you encounter a new challenge it will be a lot easier to overtake. Using the power of positive self-talk, you are going to attract more success and feelings of self-confidence in any burden you face.

Your wins are not yours alone

As you become more self-assured and achieve more wins, don’t forget about those who have had a hand in your success. Those propellers that cheered you on, the people that gave you insight to a new way of perceiving the problem, even those pessimistic folks that said you could never achieve what you set out to do. They all gave you motivation in one way or another. Don’t forget to update them on your progress and say thank you for their contributions. That helps to build your gratitude muscle.

You can achieve all the things you want to do, but it’s much better to do it with loved ones around you; family and friends, people that you care about that can help you on the way and can celebrate you, and you can enjoy the journey.

John Lasseter

Rewards are helpful

Whether you are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated, promising yourself a reward for achieving a milestone is a reminder of the journey and celebrating the conquering of challenges. For extrinsically, or externally, motivated people, knowing the reward that awaits you at the end of the journey may help you to persevere for longer than you would have otherwise. Intrinsically, or internally, motivated people, will find that the reward is an opportunity to look back on the challenges you overcame and your accomplishments on the road to your eventual success.

One of my mentors, wealth and prosperity coach Randy Gage, often decides what the reward will be in the preparation stage of a new project. For example, he may decide that when he finishes his next book, he is going to get a piece of art for his home; or when his speaking tour is complete, he is going to get a new car. Then when times get tough he has another focus beyond the grind of completing the task. The reward that awaits.

I think it’s important to celebrate your successes. It’s important to feel happy about them, but it’s equally important to look forward to the next big move.

Chanda Kochhar

On the other hand, I may not fix a reward in my mind until I am nearing the finish line. When I complete a major goal, I will make a day of rewarding myself. If I am going to buy a piece of art for my office, I will spend time researching the picture, frame, size, etc. Once I have decided, I will take myself to lunch before or after going to the gallery. I will spend time talking with the sales person and really making the reward an event worth remembering. Those things help me to feel that my accomplishment brought me the experience.

You don’t have to wait for the major accomplishment to reward yourself. Treating yourself to a moment of pleasure or gratitude with a smaller reward for a job well done or a barrier knocked down is effective too.

Conquering Achiever’s Amnesia

Once you have accomplished something, grown to new heights or crossed a developmental threshold, it is common to forget what it took to get there. You may expect that you should achieve these new targets every time. That just isn’t true. Development includes peaks and valleys and sometimes you will need to unlearn something to do it better and achieve greater success the next time around.

Celebrating your victories is a way to capture your achievements and move those successes into your long term memory. Honouring your triumphs and recalling the hurdles you overcame will create good feelings around your victories, and the reward will help to make those results tangible, preparing you for the challenges that lie ahead.

These precious moments where you celebrate your victories will serve as later reminders that you can do what you set your mind to. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back for a job well done and give yourself a little reward as a way to say, “I have achieved something special.” Celebrate your achievements as something spectacular and you will never forget that they were.

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