My win: my Remote Reiki Program Page is up! Take a look!
I started the year reflecting on how perception is fallible when it comes to measuring your progress. I followed that by talking about Resistance – the dynamic that unfailingly crops its head up when we decide to make a move toward our dreams, or better health, or any commitment toward our highest good. So today I’m going to tell you how important it is to celebrate your wins.
When I worked for Free & Clear, a telephonic tobacco cessation program, an important tenant of any quit plan was to reward your progress. Decreased the number/day you smoked? Celebrate. Added exercise? Celebrate. Started drinking water instead of just coffee? Celebrate!
I cheered my participants on, and heartily believed in the importance of taking note of these “partial” wins. But when it came to my own life, and my non-smoking-related efforts at behavior change, I would roll my eyes at the idea of celebrating before something was really done.
I hereby officially proclaim my eye-rolling to be uninformed, and that it is of paramount importance to celebrate your wins along the way!
Why? Because any goal you set is an arbitrary line that you will not just achieve, but pass beyond. What seemed like an amazing dream will suddenly be real, and not so amazing. You’ll pick a new destination, one that sparkles from a distance. In that process, you may feel let down – reaching this goal is not “all that.” And you may blow off the celebration part, especially if you’ve been blowing it off all along.
Celebrating is a practice. It’s a way of treating yourself with exceptional regard. It’s a way of honoring not just who you might someday become, but who you are today.
The other reason to celebrate your wins along the way to reaching your goals, is because along with the steady progress, come those times of Resistance – of slogging uphill. Those times that echo Samwise Gamgee’s amazing speech at the end of the movie “The Two Towers.” I can’t quote the whole thing, but he talks of “the really good stories, where the hero had lots of chances of turning back, only he didn’t.” There will be those times, when you want to turn back. When it seems so much simpler, maybe even more logical, than going forward. You may be in one of those times right now. So let me be Samwise, and tell you to keep going, because “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for!”
Your dreams are worth fighting for. Since you know there will be pain, you better darn well be sure there is plenty of pleasure as well. Celebrate your wins, be they large or small! You don’t have to camp out on Celebration Hill, but definitely stop there.
I’m celebrating a win this evening. I finally completed the page for my website presenting my Remote Reiki Program. In fact I’m celebrating double, because I didn’t think I could get it written on top of the other book-related goals I set. But I did it! Imperfectly, and very authentically, I did it. So now I get to snuggle in with the cats and this Catherine Coulter medieval romance novel. Relaxing never felt so good!
Coach’s Challenge: Help me celebrate by reading about the Remote Reiki Program and how it can be the wind beneath your wings here. And then find a way to celebrate the most recent win in your long list of “to-dos” to get to the bigger goal you set. Maybe you made a tough phone call. Maybe you reached out to a new potential friend. Maybe you took the moral high road and refrained from gossip or criticism. Good. If you can’t find a win, quick, do something on your list! You’re doing great, so celebrate!
Want to use this article? Great! Just please include the following:
