Take a moment to celebrate your achievement before beginning to chase the next one

As highlighted in my previous posts I’ve been worrying a lot about the future and how I’ll achieve future goals, and it’s occurred to me today that often we become so obsessed with writing out lists of goals and plans for us to complete, that we actually end up just hopping straight from one goal to the next without taking a moment to fully enjoy and admire our accomplishment. Like give yourself a pat on the back every once in a while!! So today I want to encourage you to take a minute to reflect on how far you’ve come.

Step 1: Make a list of all you’ve achieved (big and small) in the last 2 years.

Step 2: Review this list and recall any feelings of doubt or hopelessness you had in the process of achieving that goal.

Step 3: Think about how proud and relieved your past self would be if you were able to tell them that you did it!

Step 4: Keep this list of achievements to add to in the future and to look at when you you start to lose faith in yourself. Maybe even keep it next to your to-do list for some encouragement.

Step 5 (The fun part!): Plan a mini celebration for any achievement that hasn’t been well enough recognised in your life. This could be anything from taking a day or two off from working on your goals, to running yourself a nice bubble bath, to baking some buns/cake and blowing out a candle, or ordering your favourite takeaway. Go on, treat yourself! You deserve it 🙂

After all what’s the fun in just going through life ticking things off your to-do list if you don’t get to relish and celebrate drawing that satisfying tick! I remember my friend at school used to put a line through her homeworks written in her ‘homework diary’ (where we had to record all assignments given to us) when she’d completed them, and I just thought this was awful because I love the sight of a big fat tick (I always did them in thick green marker too in order to further highlight their completion), but I see now that it doesn’t matter what way you acknowledge your achievement, as long as you acknowledge it! Be that through a tick or by putting a big line through it so that it isn’t even readable anymore! Out of sight, out of mind as they say haha:)

Acknowledging all of our victories also builds self-confidence and self-belief as it helps us to recognise how capable we are, and this gives us hope for future endeavours. It also helps life to feel less like a hard slog, by breaking up your journey with breaks to enjoy and take in how far you’ve come. If we are are constantly consumed by the pursuit of our goals, we’re likely to burn out pretty quickly, and feel like we don’t have the energy for them or maybe even the interest in them anymore. So taking some time out to give yourself a well-earned rest after each achievement will get us refreshed and recharged, ready for taking on the next goal.

It’s easy to brush over our accomplishments as not a big deal but you’re probably forgetting that there was once a time when you dreamed of getting to where you are now.

So take a minute to look back and appreciate how far you’ve come before turning your focus on to conquering the next peak.

Take care, be proud of how far you’ve come, and excited by far you can go,

Emma 🙂