Yesterday on a coaching call, one of my client’s had a breakthrough. After months of work, he was able to articulate a vision for his particular role. My response? I asked him how he could celebrate. I won’t tell you what he said he was going to do to celebrate, but he thought up something good. What about you, have you celebrated any of your successes up to this point?
My original purpose of starting my 40 days of action project was to help people generate new actions toward reaching their most important goals. After thinking on it, I realized that I failed to incorporate one of the most important actions – celebration.
If you’ve been with me up to this point, you’ve already generated a number of new actions toward your goal. What’s been your greatest success? Write it down. How might you celebrate that success? When and where will you do it?
Celebrating is good for for two reasons. First, it reminds you of the goal you are aiming for. Second, it encourages you to keep going.
If you lead a team, when was the last time you celebrated a win with your team? If you are an individual, when was the last time you celebrated forward progress on one of your goals?
Science has shown that celebrating can have a positive effect on us because it literally rewires our brains. Walter Chen, in an article called How To Rewire Your Brain for Positivity and Happiness talks about this interesting subject. He says,
We can harness the brain’s plasticity by training our brain to make positive patterns more automatic. When we practice looking for and being more aware of positive aspects of life, we fight off the brain’s natural tendency to scan for and spot the negatives…
Do you find yourself focusing on the negatives too often? Do some work this weekend to find a way to celebrate what you’ve accomplished toward your goal up to this point. Maybe it’s going out to eat with someone you love. Perhaps it’s watching a movie you’ve been wanting to see. Or maybe to celebrate, you could take some time to help someone out who could use your help. Whatever it is, I encourage you to choose to do something to celebrate the wins you’ve experienced up to this point. It’ll be good for you and it will be good for the world.
This is day 14 of an exercise I’m engaging in called, 40 days of action, how to generate momentum on your most important goals. If you’d like to read the original blog, click here. If you’d like to participate in 40 days of action, click here to email me.