Take Time to Celebrate Your Wins

Two weeks ago I was in a coaching session with a client and we got to talking about success in our careers. She is a home designer, helping people transform their space into the home of their dreams, and I am a speaker and life coach, helping people overcome limiting beliefs and step into their fullest potential.

One thing we both realized while talking was how easy it is to move quickly from one project to the next, one goal to another, without ever really taking the time to acknowledge and celebrate the wins in between. For example, a few weeks ago, I delivered a workshop at a financial firm in Baltimore, and it went really well. I received positive feedback from the CEO and many team members after the workshop, and even had someone write me an email later that day asking about coaching sessions.

Here in front of me was all of this proof that I had accomplished something great in my career. And yet, as I drove home from the workshop, I heard my perfectionist voice whisper: "Well maybe you could do this and that part better next time." And then over dinner with my partner that night, instead of celebrating my success, I immediately started talking about my next workshop and how I needed to prepare.

I was already on to the next thing.

In this moment, as my partner raised her glass to cheers my success, I realized how much of a habit this non-celebrating the wins had become in my life. Putting so much pressure on myself to meet my own high expectations, and then once the work was done (and done well), instead of noticing and commemorating the win, I moved the goal-post.

If this was the way I was going to continue, what was the point of any of my work, I wondered?

And so here's what I did (and my client did the same).

Since I know we are all capable of creating new neural pathways in the brain (neuroplasticity) by practicing radical self-awareness and choosing new habits to support personal growth, my client and I decided to start writing down all of our wins in a notebook at the end of each day.

Last Tuesday I booked a new coaching client and before bed that night, I wrote down how much I was looking forward to working with this client and helping them find what they are looking for. On Thursday, a client told me how much my recordings were helping her with redirecting her thoughts throughout the day, and so I jotted down how happy that made me feel - to know I was making a small difference in someone's life.

Such an incredibly simple practice - noticing and finding gratitude for your wins. You'd almost think it's too simple to make any real impact, but I have found the opposite to be true. Shifting my focus away from all the success I have yet to find, and toward all the success already here has been transformative, and it's only been two weeks.

Now some days my wins aren't related to success in work and instead are just finding the good things about each day like how pretty the sky looked on my drive home from work or enjoying a yummy dinner after a long day. There really isn't a wrong way to do this practice. It's just 5 little steps.

1. Notice when you're focusing on what's wrong or what could be better.

2. Ask yourself if that's really serving you and eliciting the emotions you want to feel.

3. Shift your focus to what's going right (even if it feels cheesy). You can even make it into a little game of "how many good things can I name right now."

4. Write down all the good from your day - all your wins. It only takes a few minutes tops.

5. Notice how your mood shifts after a few weeks (consistency is key).

   
   

   Because if we're not enjoying the process of getting to where we want to go, and we're not enjoying the success once we get there, what are we doing? I don't want to live like that, and my guess is you don't want to either. So let's practice enjoying it all as much as we can. I think that's the point, friends.