Celebrating success

photo by unknown

I too, like many people I know into personal development are always looking for new ways to improve. I’m always looking for something to learn, a new way to help me grow, or a new practice for optimizing or improving some aspect of my life.

When you’re always looking ahead at where you want to be and what you want to achieve, it’s easy to forget about all the accomplishments you’ve made. When we don’t do this we get discouraged, only seeing how much further we have to go. We have to remember to take the time to celebrate and acknowledge our personal success. We have to see how far we’ve come to realize the value of our efforts.

You don’t have to choose between self-improvement and self-acceptance

I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned along my path. I like many others, struggled to adopt a personal development mindset because I thought it contradicted self-acceptance. I realized the reason I felt this conflict is because I was identifying myself with my position. I thought in order for me to accept myself, I had to be accepting of my position in life. But there was another part of me that wanted to grow and improve. How could I balance these two desires? The way I achieved this is I started identifying myself with my values, instead of my position. I shifted my identity from my position to my personal values such as integrity, authenticity, devotion, balance, and clarity.

This was the biggest key that led me to resolving the inner conflict I felt between personal growth and self acceptance. However, I tend to get so caught up in trying to improve and doing things better and learning, that I often forget to recognize my personal victories. If you’re highly motivated and always looking to grow and improve your life, that’s wonderful. But you need to remember to acknowledge your victories, your improvements and your successes.

How acknowledging success reinforces success

• Increases your motivation – When you acknowledge your success, you become inspired to continuing working toward your goals.
• Increases confidence – If you can achieve one thing, perhaps you can achieve something greater.
• Overcoming setbacks – Focusing on your successes helps you not become discourages by setbacks and keeps you on track.
• Puts a smile on your face – You naturally feel good about yourself when you celebrate your achievements, this has a positive spiral effect. When you smile more, you stay positive, giving you more motivation, confidence and resilience.

5 tips to celebrate your success:

1. Make a list of all the things you’ve achieved in your life that you’re proud of. Look at your life from a third person perspective. See yourself as your own best friend instead of a critic. When we look at our lives objectively it’s easier to recognize our success instead of simply focusing on our short-comings.
2. Journal about your successes and failures and how you learned from them.
3. When you make to-do lists, as you cross off items make a done list. We often don’t realize how much we’ve accomplished until we can visually see all the progress we’ve made.
4. Take yourself out on a date, get some frozen yogurt, a smoothie or a latte. Take yourself out to a movie or buy yourself a new book or your favorite magazine. Remind yourself that this is for all the progress you’ve made.
5. Make friendships with others that have the same goals and aspirations that you do. Join a social network or local group that will help you stay focused and motivated. You’ll realize one of the greatest reasons why doing this works so well is because you’ll be surrounded by other people encouraging, congratulating you and celebrating your success with you.

Don’t wait until you’ve achieved your final goals to celebrate your success. Celebrate now, realize how far you’ve come and be inspired.

Do you have anything to add about how celebrating your success is a key toward personal growth? Please share your comments with us below! =)

If you enjoyed this article, please digg, stumble or share with one of the other links below. Thank you for your support, it is truly appreciated.

Sharing is caring!