When was the last time you celebrated after you accomplished a goal?
If you are like me, you are laughing: Celebrate??? What’s that???
All of us have, however, worked very hard to accomplish a number of things
in the recent past, as well as in previous years.
We have had many successes, whether we will acknowledge it or not.
But if we ask ourselves what they were, we probably forgot most of them!
And most likely we didn’t celebrate many, if any at all.
Why IS that?
It certainly isn’t a problem of memory.
Because if we asked ourselves about our FAILURES…
ha ha ha we didn’t forget any of those.
So let’s take a look at why we don’t celebrate our own success.
Maybe we can turn things around and start recognizing our wins.
Are you WITH me?
Let’s DO this!
Working toward a reward
What got me thinking about celebration was the struggle I continue to have in the pool
to learn to swim freestyle. I start to get it, then it feels like I am starting all over again.
But I’m not gonna quit, so I know that eventually I will conquer the coordination
and swim smooth as a minnow.
And today I actually had the thought: But when I do, I will deserve a reward!!!
This was an unusual thought.
But the more I thought it, the more I liked it.
Hey, if I persevere through all these months of toil and suffering…and WIN,
I will darn well deserve to celebrate!!!
I actually gave myself permission, and even came up with an idea for my reward.
Doing so, I had the feeling that justice was being served!
And my determination to win was renewed.
Why is it a question of justice?
It is a question of justice because being deprived of reward for hard work
is unfair.
If someone else worked that hard for us, we would definitely reward them.
It is ourselves whose hard work and accomplishments we most often deny
or dismiss as nothing worth celebrating.
But once we see that we are treating ourselves badly, we can set things right.
It will take some effort.
Even coming up with an idea for a reward may take us a long time!!!
And declaring to the world: “I celebrate my accomplishments!”
–and maybe even inviting someone to join us–
is going to feel different. Very, very different.
Do you think we can stand it?
We give a lot of thought to doing justice to others…
Do you think we can bear to do justice to ourselves?
QUESTION:
Is there something you accomplished in your life that you never celebrated?
It’s not too late! Go ahead–give yourself permission!
I’d love to add my congratulations, so I hope you will write and tell me about it.
Dr. Hall