When you work hard to accomplish something do you take the time to celebrate? Celebrating progress and success are an important part of goal setting, growth, and achieving what you set out to do.  It can help with momentum and motivation. To learn how to celebrate your wins we can think of celebrations in two categories: intentional and spontaneous.

2 ways to celebrate your wins

In my experience, planning how to celebrate your wins can be a struggle. For some goals, I have found it easy to find rewards for that served as motivation for me to keep going. Other goals have been very difficult for me to decide on what kind of reward I should get. As I continue to learn how to set better goals, I am also working to understand how to celebrate better.

As I learn from my experiences, and from others that share their celebrations, I gain a better understanding of how to celebrate wins. 

There are two main ways that you can celebrate your wins: 1) intentionally 2) spontaneously.

We have influence on these ways to celebrate. Of course, you could say there is a third way, recognition from others, but in this post I want to focus on the above two ways.

You intentionally do something to celebrate your achievement.

Intentionally doing something to celebrate your achievement means that we need to know what type and level of celebration our achievement warrants.

Two common types of rewards:

1) Social

For a social reward, you may want to consider if the celebration is something you want to share with others. If so, how many others? In what way would you like to involve other people in your celebration? It can be helpful to note that even if it’s a personal issue that you want to honor and give some public light too, how much of what you share and how you share it are up to you.

2) Tangible

A tangible, or purchased reward, can be related or unrelated to your goal.

Maybe you want to purchase something related to the goal that will further encourage progress on that goal or impact that area towards further growth. For example, you buy yourself a nice running jacket after completing your goal to run everyday before work for 30 minutes. Perhaps you started your running habit on the treadmill and now you’re ready to take it to the street. You can wear your reward when you run in the cold.

And unrelated reward would be treating yourself to a type of food you like or buying yourself something that isn’t related to your goal.

Be careful with a purchased reward though, especially when trying to relate it to a goal somehow. It can open you up to a missed celebration if you can’t figure out what that purchased reward should be. More on that below.

The important thing to remember is that rewards don’t have to be huge or tangible.  They could be, especially at the end of a super difficult goal or behavior change. However, small and non-tangible rewards are good also. Pay attention to your body and seek out a clue for how to celebrate spontaneously.

You spontaneously do something to celebrate your achievement.

We can intentionally plan out how we will celebrate a specific goal, but it’s important to remember that celebrations don’t always have to be entirely intentional, or saved for our biggest goal or growth. When feel like you accomplished something, feel the energy of your body. Do a little dance by your desk, do some air punches, give yourself a yay.

There was an interview in the 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever course where one of the interviewees said that he celebrates by doing a few second little dance. It’s simple, but having your body feel the energy created by a little dance is a good reward.

Just the other day, I found myself celebrating a productive blog planning day by ending the day in the fitness center of the hotel. I had checked into a hotel for the weekend to remove distractions. My trip to the fitness center started off as me needing to get up and move since I had been in my room all day thinking and planning. However, the energy that I had from my focused work made that workout feel like a celebration!

Even after the workout was done and I was walking back to my room, I did a few celebratory air punches. It felt great! This is what a spontaneous celebration looks like. I didn’t let the hotel camera in the hallway stop me from celebrating (that in itself is something for me to celebrate)

Figure out how to celebrate your wins

Identifying the “right reward” is something that I have been struggling with since I started setting goals. It’s difficult because I mostly see rewards as something that I need to buy for myself. However, when I’m focused on that tangible reward, it becomes a game of trying to find the perfect reward of each goal. When I’ve played that game, I might think of things that serve as a reward, but then later decide that it isn’t related enough to what I want to celebrate. As a result, I’ve not followed through with celebrations.

I have also set goals and said, “I’ll think of a reward for achieving that goal later” and then never filled in a reward.

Therefore, while I will be working really hard to identify intentional ways to celebrate each of my goals this year, I am also learning to use what comes up in life as rewards.

I hope this helps you as you are trying to figure out how to celebrate your wins. Keep in mind that there are intentional and spontaneous ways to celebrate and that you can have a mixture of social and tangible rewards.

Are there goals or achievements for this year that you haven’t yet celebrated?

Now is the time to celebrate. Even the small wins that might be the steps we are taking to get to that big goal.

Behavior Challenge: Think of a goal or achievement that hasn’t been celebrated yet (or needs another celebration). Do something to celebrate it right now. Even if that means doing a head bob dance while the person next to you wonders what’s so spectacular.

Change and growth means a lot of thought and work. The process to a better life isn’t always pretty and we might not want to talk about it. Before we succeed we might look like we are failing. Yet to move from our old way of life to our new way of life we need to admit that there is a problem. This is the first step to move forward in life.

Admitting there is a problem

Y’all, we are never going to change anything in our lives if we can’t admit that there’s a problem. This is the hard truth, written by someone that has experienced this first hand.

There was a time in my life where I experienced feeling stuck and hopeless.

I couldn’t improve my living situation, because I couldn’t improve my job situation. Yet, I’m going to take that further. I couldn’t improve my job situation, because I couldn’t improve my outlook on life.

I couldn’t improve my outlook on life, because I didn’t want to admit that there was a problem. So instead of making a change to move forward in life I did what might be happening to you, or to someone that you know.

I was running in circles instead of running forward.

Only when I admitted that there was a problem, could I begin to work towards solving that problem. This is what I believe happened to me in my faith journey as well.

Admitting that there is a problem continues to help move me forward in all areas of my life. Admitting that there is a problem is huge. If you can do that, you can start to move forward in life.

Another step to moving forward is what I call doing the work.

 Doing the work

Once we admit that there is a problem we can use that momentum to help us get unstuck by reflecting, changing how we think, and setting goals.

Yet somewhere in the progress of change, we realize that we have a plan or idea that we want to do, but we can’t seem to make it happen. Or we might know what we need to do or want to change, but we find it hard to act.

Personal growth sounds great until we realize that growth requires action.

Let’s admit that we often times want the learning of the skills needed to be enough to move us forward.

Yet no one grows into perfection overnight. The journey of behavior change takes time and commitment and practice. I find that is the same with my growth in faith as well.

Confronting what we want to change

In both cases we have to confront what it is in our life that we want to change and then seek out ways to change it. Growth and change are not magical experiences even when you are faced with a powerful faith experience, like I was, or a killer science based growth tool. You have to do the work.

Sometimes doing the work is messy or takes a long time. Sometimes we are doing the work and making progress, but to others it seems like we aren’t because they don’t have the full picture. They either don’t know where we started from or they can’t see the changes happening.

It’s in this space where it is important to acknowledge your small wins and seek out people who will listen to and celebrate your growth wins–no matter how small the wins are.

Move forward in life

In conclusion, the best way to move forward in life is to admit that there is a problem and stick with the work that needs to be done to solve the problem.

I hope that in sharing what has helped me move forward in life that others will gain some encouragement that there is hope for a better day.

Feeling stuck doesn’t have to be a permanent feeling.

As someone that tried time and time again to figure out the process of how to move forward in life, admitting that there is a problem and doing the work are the best steps that I know to take at this time.

Is there another step you would add that would help someone wanting to move forward?

Behavior Challenge: What is the easiest step that you could take right now to work on a goal that you made but are having a difficult time following through with?

In my last post, Faith and Behavior: Why do we keep faith and behavior quiet?, I stated that in this blog, I want to provide a safe place to share behavior change goals and growth. I also stated that I want to open the dialogue of faith and behavior. As I continue to figure out how this works in the format of this blog, I appreciate your thoughts and feedback.

Trying to move forward when you are constantly focused on all that you should have done or on everything that you think you cannot do limits what you can accomplish. Instead of focusing on all that is not yet happening in your life, focus on what you can do to get there. Goal setting is important to personal growth. Affirmations influence goal setting. Focusing on what and where you want to be, in a positive way, can help you along the goal setting journey.

In my post, How Goal Setting Triggered a Life Change, I wrote about the differences between setting goals and making a resolution. I also wrote that goal setting is an attitude change that is helped by 1) reframing limiting beliefs 2) developing a personal reflection habit and 3) giving yourself permission to stand out.

If you haven’t read, How Goal Setting Triggered a Life Change, read it now.

Trade in the negative thoughts about yourself for affirmations.

Overcoming negative self-talk.

Sometimes it is difficult to change limiting beliefs, because they are ingrained and have become our default way of thinking. In my struggle to overcome these negative voices, the voices that want me to focus on everything I still lack, I write daily affirmation statements.

Affirmations are cool, y’all. They work in the same way as my driving a certain car brings to my attention all the other sightings of my kind of car. It is this type of experience…with your thoughts.

What does it look like to focus on affirmations?

Here’s an example where daily affirmations influence goal setting.

Let’s say that one of your goals is to start your own business, but one of your limiting beliefs is an ingrained belief from years of telling yourself that you don’t have what it takes (i.e. you don’t have the money, or the time management skills, or leadership experience).

Let’s take the first statement, “I’ll never have enough money to start my own business.” The reframed belief could be, “I am working to raise my income to start my own business.” For some people, maybe this reframed belief will be enough. Yet, what if it is not?

Here are two ways to use an affirmation statement to focus your day in a positive way and reinforce the goal you want to work on:

• “I am a successful person capable of taking the steps necessary to increase my income and start creating the business of my dreams.”
• “I am making progress each day towards better management of the money I have.”

One is an overarching statement and two focuses on one step in improving your view of your money situation. Either is good. You might want to use type one some days and type two other days.

I find that I use a mixture of both kinds. Some days I focus on broad affirmations and other days I focus on step specific affirmations.

When I was getting started in goal setting, one of my regular affirmations was an overarching statement. It was a daily “I can do this” type statement.

Affirmations help you overcome those limiting beliefs.

Affirmations are fun.

The fun part of affirmations, for me, is two-fold:

• It focuses your brain on what you want to become and keeps you focused on the positive things that you are doing to better yourself and your situation.
• You start to see the world around you differently. Perhaps you start to see yourself differently.

Going back to the starting a business example and the affirmations I suggested. Let’s say that you started your day with the second affirmation on your mind, “I am making progress each day towards better management of the money I have.”

If you are focused on better management of your money, you are more likely to notice when you make a good financial decision in the midst of the day. If you notice the small financial wins, you gain the confidence to tackle the larger ones.

Affirmations help you focus on what and where you want to be.

Affirmations are positive thoughts you want to grow.

If you are trying to move forward and need help developing a positive view, give affirmations a try. If you have set a goal for something in the past and you are still struggling to meet the goal, try affirmations.

Affirmations are not magic. It might take months of focus on the same affirmation before you see any progress, but it’s a daily practice that has helped me.

I like looking back at the affirmations that I have focused on and how I have grown in each of those areas. If you try it, I hope you see some improvements are well.

If you want more help getting started with daily affirmations check out the 5 Minute Journal from Intelligent Change.

Behavior Challenge: Write one affirmation for the day. It can be related to a goal or a reframed limiting belief, or you can pick one area that you want to change how you think.

Comment on this post if you have any thoughts, questions, or want to leave me a note.

Sometimes changing your situation can be daunting. Where do you start? When do you start? What if you know what you want vaguely (increased income, healthy relationships, better job), but you do not know what it looks like to attain what you want? What then? It can be daunting when you are in this place. It might even become discouraging if you stay in this place for a long time.

Goal setting is not a resolution.

I was never one to set New Year’s Resolutions.

There was all this talk about people going to the gym and then they would stop after a few months. It didn’t work for them, so I had no motivation to try it for myself. Putting effort into something only to give up did not sound very effective.

I entertained the idea of setting a resolution – you know, once or twice – because everyone else was talking about it, but I was never someone that saw the value in setting resolutions in the way that they were presented to me. So for me to write about goal setting…something has changed in how I view working towards those things I want to happen one day.

Goal setting is more than saying that you want to change this or that.

Goal setting is an attitude change.

The first thing I had to do before I set any goals was rid myself of negative and limiting thoughts that had ingrained themselves into my discouraged being. How could I dream of the future and believe that I really could attain these big dreams for a better life, if I held on to the self-doubt and self-deprecating thoughts? Read my post on limiting beliefs.

Another important part of the goal setting journey is getting to know yourself. For goal setting to work, you need to know you. You need to know what it is that you want in the future. This is an ongoing process. The more you know yourself the better you can craft goals that you will achieve. Read my post on developing a personal reflection habit.

Give yourself permission to stand out.

I know the struggle of standing out. I know it is difficult to do things differently than what others expect. Whether it is because the process outlined is different from the way you want to go, or because you have a different outlook entirely.

A lesson that I have learned in this goal setting journey, of changing my attitude and knowing that my changing might cause me to stand out from the crowd, is that finding people that are willing to stand out in the crowd with you can keep you going when you lack the strength.

Embrace that in order to go where you want to go you might have to do things differently.

Read the following quotes from some of my virtual mentors: 

To be at a healthy weight in a country with a population that is 70% overweight, you have to be different from most people. – Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits for Weight Loss 

If you will live like no one else later you can live like no one else. – Dave Ramsey, financial mentor

Be the exception. – Darren Hardy, success and productivity mentor

As I continue on my personal development journey I notice that my behavior is more and more focused on my own choices. I have come to the realization that if I want to make progress, I often need to step outside of what not only has become a habit for me…but what is also considered normal behavior for an American in the twenty first century.

My high school year book quote was “What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular.” In those days I was mostly focused on the truth of this in terms of religious beliefs. Yet as you can see from the above quotes, there are other instances where we would benefit from evaluating our decisions and actions to consider options that are different from what everyone else embraces.

It is because I am surrounding myself with the work of those quoted above and others focused on personal growth and behavior change that I am learning to give myself permission to stand out and do things differently.

Where do you start? When you start? Start here. Start now.

If you want to change your situation, setting goals in the areas you want to change will help you move forward.

To get started:

• Reframe your limiting beliefs.
• Embrace the positive and allow yourself to dream.
• Get to know yourself.
• Let yourself stand out where it is important and find others to stand out with you.
• Dare to do things differently.

I’ll talk more about goal setting in the next post.

I’d love to hear from you. Do you have a vision of what you want to attain or are you struggling with clarity?