You work so hard to get to the desired goal, you need to take time to celebrate when that goal is reached. Large or small, it doesn’t matter. Celebrate! Doing that is not egotistical or selfish. Many times, what you achieve doesn’t get any credit, and you may be the only person on earth who knows or cares that you accomplished a personal goal. Celebrate it anyway! Live in the glow of that moment! Be proud and also grateful to know that the discipline and the hard work you put toward a clear, decisive goal was completed. Great job!
I see so many people tell others they just need to buckle down and work all the time and keep working until their ultimate goal or dream is achieved. But where is the fun in that? You will enjoy the journey far more if you celebrate each step of progress along the way, no matter how small. When you work hard, I believe to keep the momentum going you should always celebrate the small successes. Little actions become big accomplishments over time, so they are meaningful even if it doesn’t seem like it.
You can do simple things to celebrate, for example, a nice night out at a restaurant or a small trip away from work or home. This refreshes you and allows your mind to feel gratification. And it creates more confidence.
One way my football coach would reward our defensive back group was to put money in a pot for good plays. It could be a pick, a sack, a pick-six, a shutout, or no big plays allowed. Then at the end of the year, we would count the money as a group and use it to go on a DB trip. That was a way we rewarded ourselves throughout the season. We would get excited each time our group made a play because we knew that each play made meant more money the coach put in the pot for our trip. We took some pretty nice trips.
We celebrated the successes, and that helped us play better each week. The seasons were long and not everything was perfect. Of course, we made mistakes, but mistakes are always correctable. The emphasis was on creating positive plays and rewarding them.
You might easily become discouraged if it doesn’t seem like enough progress is being made toward your goal. But you should understand that one tiny accomplishment will often put you into just the right position to accomplish an even bigger task.
Life is hard and you cannot spend energy on the negative or you will always stay in that pattern. Stay enthusiastic and inspired, and give yourself room to celebrate all the accomplishments in your life. It’s more about the journey than the destination.
Someday, when all your small successes accumulate, you will see that these small successes were the building blocks for the great successes in your life. So, affirm yourself every time you make progress, significant or small. This will give you enough confidence to further strive toward the improvement and development of yourself.
