Why it’s important to celebrate your achievements

We can give ourselves a hard time can’t we? It’s also the goal-setting time of year. We may want things to be bigger and better than before. We may even be putting pressure on ourselves to pursue goals that aren’t right for us or our values. We may feel we need to set goals to be successful (definitely not always the case). Goal setting is good for us if it’s realistic, we stay true to what’s important to us and what works with our lifestyle and other commitments.  Before you start rushing into planning goals, take some time to reflect on things you’ve achieved on the personal and professional side. So here’s seven reasons why it’s important to celebrate your achievements or what I call WOW moments…

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Photo courtesy of Katrina Campbell Photography

1. Don’t forget to look back...Goal setting isn’t good for us if it distracts us from what we’ve achieved already. We may continue to set ourselves goals as we feel what we have achieved isn’t good enough. Those achievements can be easily forgotten as we start planning our next adventures, milestones or projects.You choose the period of time you’d like to celebrate. It could be yesterday, last week or last year.

Jot down your WOW moments (even on a post-it) or do a photo collage that will remind you of some fab WOW moments. If you like doodling, draw a mind map or your own cartoon. If you like using technology, compile a WOW list on your iPhone or  GoogleDocs. If you’re a visual person, keep a folder of screen shots of favourite boosting text messages from mates or WOW moment photos (which can be of ordinary things). Your collection of WOW moments might also includes quotes or things people have said about you.

2. What’s great right now...Celebrating your achievements for today is pretty important too. Take a moment to appreciate what’s gone well today. Taking out a few minutes in the day can help us re-focus especially when we’re juggling frantic to-do lists on paper and in our heads.

3. Confidence boosting…No one is 100% confident all of the time. We all have our wobbly moments so refer back to your achievements to energise your confidence when it starts to feel a bit tired.

4. Friendly failures…When we hear the word failure it can sound pretty harsh. It has a bad rep. Many people are worried about failing. What would people think? But I believe you need to go through failures to experience real success. So failures are actually our friends. Failures grow our skills essential for getting closer to our goals and aspirations.

5. Self-recognition is always right behind you…When you spend a little time thinking about your WOW moments, YOU are the source of your own recognition and confidence. It’s good to rely on ourselves for this.

6. Achievements are qualitative as well as quantitative…Many industries or careers can be driven by numbers or stat-related measures. It could be savings, profits, satisfaction scores, sales targets, followers or likes. Look at your achievements with a qualitative lens. Don’t forget achievements which made you feel a certain way. Did achieving something make you feel happy or proud? Did you surprise yourself with your abilities?

7. Don’t forget about how or why you achieved something…It’s easy to just think about the end result. What motivated you to achieve X, Y or Z in the first place? What was the purpose of your achievement? How did it help you or others? What did you learn from moving closer to your WOW moment?
So what were some of my WOW moments for last year? 

Being out and about with the girls on my own. Sounds like a straightforward thing for some but for me it took me a while to get my head around a day out in London town with a “can’t wait to walk” toddler in a buggy and a threenager. It felt fun and exciting to head out on some adventures with my little girl crew. One thing I loved about this was talking about things me and Big Munch would spot on our travels. We loved hanging out at the Mama Meets at Olive Loves Alfie East. We worked out some fab little organisational tricks to make our days out a bit easier. I’ll be sharing these tips on the blog soon.

Hearing my Toddler Munch say mummy for the first time (just the other day she copied her big Sister who was yelling Mummy from her bedroom!) “Daddiz” is one of Toddler Munch’s favourite words so it felt lovely that I’ve finally made it into her vocab. I feel like a celeb.

Collaborating with talented people and teams. I learnt heaps from working with others on different projects, whether they were corporate or creative.

Getting people together and sharing some confidence tricks at the Lucky Things Meet Up. It felt rewarding and refreshing to see everyone bounce off each other for inspiration. Enjoying laughs and smiles in real life and real time is priceless.

Over to you…Do you like to record your WOW moments? If so, how do you do this? What were some of your favourite WOW moments from last week or last year?

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11 thoughts on “Why it’s important to celebrate your achievements

  1. Circus Mum says:

    I think this year I may keep a journal and write down some of my everyday WOW momentsm inspired from reading your post. It’s so important to take note of each smaller achievement, not just trying to reach the larger resolution style goals!
    I really enjoyed the post and very glad I took part in #fortheloveblog for the first time as it meant I’ve found your slice of the internet x

  2. The Pramshed says:

    Great post Sunita and it is so valuable to appreciate and celebrate your wow moments as these form the foundations of your goals. You’ve had a fab year and it is great to read your wow moments. I’m really looking forward to hopefully having some wow moments following the Lucky Things meet-up, and applying some of your points you mention here to my working life…..something that I need more wow moments in. Thanks for linking up at #fortheloveofBLOG. Claire x

    • Sunita says:

      Ah thanks Claire. I’m sure you’ve had lots of WOW moments already this year. Sometimes we don’t realise what they are until afterwards! Yes it’s fab I’ll get to see you at the Lucky Things Meet Up. We will all have a fab time. Agree it’s hard to think of the WOW moments on the work front but worth remembering those too. See you again on #fortheloveofblog

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