Alright!!!
You’ve just had a BIG win. Maybe it was a promotion, a new relationship, or a great opportunity that you just couldn’t pass up! Congrats on what you’ve accomplished, but did you celebrate yourself and the progress you’ve made toward your dreams and goals?
Well, maybe you had a celebration: a nice dinner with your spouse or partner, maybe your co-workers took you out for drinks, or perhaps they even threw you a party, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
You had a celebration, yes, but was it more about the event and less about yourself and your dreams?
If your co-workers or colleagues threw the party, they’re likely celebrating the fact that you got a promotion. You need to be celebrating the fact that you worked so hard to overcome the challenges and got the promotion. What dream or goal did your accomplishment get you closer to?
Celebrating yourself on the path to achieving your goals can feel a bit tricky, and you might even think that it seems a bit arrogant, but don’t worry, as you continue your pursuit and you intentionally celebrate your progress and your wins, you’ll get used to it.
How To Celebrate Yourself Fearlessly
First, you need to separate yourself from the event that took place. Let’s assume it was a promotion that you received. First, you have the event: The promotion itself and all the joy it gives you. Then you have yourself or all the WORK you put in to get that promotion. Did you stay up late, get to work early, and bust your tail to turn in a stellar project that explained everything beautifully, with graphics and visuals to match?
You need to celebrate what you did to make the positive event happen. Maybe you brought together an underperforming team of people and made them stars, or maybe you took over a well-performing department and kept it all moving forward.
Sometimes NOT messing with the chemistry and operation of a fabulous team is harder than pulling great results out of an already well-oiled machine. Knowing when to leave things (and people) alone can be harder than throwing them all into the proverbial blender and mixing things up.
Make a list of the changes you initiated, your “leave it alone” moments, and the innovations that worked – you should have this anyway, but in addition, you should be enjoying all the things you have done that will help advance your career or business.
Then, with all those positive memories in mind, celebrate with yourself.
Do something you want to do, whether it’s going to a fancy dinner all by yourself or simply grabbing your favorite takeout and carving out time for a watch-a-thon of a favorite show (or shows) on Netflix.
You deserve this time to celebrate yourself because it has the following benefits:
The Benefits of Self-Celebration for Women Over 50
The benefits of self-celebration – especially for today’s hard-working woman over 50 – are twofold. First, they remind you of all that you did to get your big win, and that hard work needs to be rewarded. Additionally, it also allows you to rest and recharge.
You don’t have to rest on your accomplishments forever, but whenever you take the time to celebrate, your mind isn’t focused on work or the next thing you need to do.
Don’t let our youth-focused society encourage you to push aside your accomplishments because, after all, you’re no longer the “newbie on the block,” and if you ARE the “newbie,” even MORE reason to celebrate!
No matter how much experience you have, you’re deserving of the celebration because of what you’ve done TODAY. Let the celebration help you to focus on the present while you take a well-deserved breather from all the work you’ve done.
Then, when you do return to work, you’ll find that you are ready to go and recharged from your celebration, ready to kick your efforts back into gear and tackle the next task with a full tank of gas!
Taking time to recharge might seem like a waste of time at the start, but whenever you factor in the value of celebrating and refueling yourself, you’ll start to see that time differently.
After all, which goes further? A car that goes until it runs out of gas and then refills, or a car that stops and refuels along the journey? The second one goes further, so why not treat your body the exact same way?
Refueling Tip: Throw Yourself A Party
Throwing yourself a party is one of the best ways to celebrate yourself because you get to honor all the hard work that has gotten you this far.
Take your next big win and take yourself out to do something you love to do – really hit the pause button and just have fun. Whether that means a special dinner, a movie date, a physical something like a piece of jewelry or a new tool, or a weekend away from social media and the constant interruptions of a cell phone, plan ahead to help your party be exactly what you want and need it to be – by YOUR definition
You’ve earned it, you deserve it, and it will only make you feel more excited for the next big win, where you can do it all over again!
