Why You Should Stop and Celebrate
Are you taking the time to stop and celebrate? Sometimes, as the weather gets cooler and we get busier and busier, we can get caught up in this feeling of always wanting more.
It’s that feeling of getting to the end of the day and feeling like you could have done more. It’s getting a new client, but then immediately feeling like you need five more clients. It’s making a sale and then realizing that you “need” 12 more sales.
If you’re not careful – especially as a woman entrepreneur – the “always more” syndrome can completely drain your energy.
There are so many ways to understand the “always more” syndrome. First and foremost, if you’re feeling this way, know that it is very, very human. Our brains are wired to always want more.
The important piece is learning to manage this need for more in a way that is healthy for us. One way to keep this need from always running the show is to stop and celebrate.
It’s one of the reasons why my 90-day Breakthrough Planner has a section for three 90-day goals along with the specific celebrations that you’re going to do when you hit each goal.
At our last planner day, someone raised her hand and said, “But, Monica, I don’t feel like I deserve to celebrate. I feel like when I hit my goal, I’ve just done what I was supposed to do – so why do I have to stop and celebrate?”
I thought that was such a great question, because many of us were raised in homes and cultures where we just do the work without taking time to celebrate.
In order to manage the “always more” syndrome, we need a moment to sit with ourselves and intentionally recognize the fact that we earned and received something because of the work that we did.
Our brains are programmed to always be thinking about our next goal – which makes it really easy to miss the present moment. Know that you’re allowed to give yourself time to feel happy and proud.
This moment of celebration gives us a brief respite from focusing on and working towards that next goal. It’s an opportunity to feel the joy and pride of the moment. And that respite is so important to preventing burnout and exhaustion.
There are a lot of different ways that you could find that moment of celebration – it doesn’t have to be something incredibly extravagant.
Maybe you have plans to go out to dinner on a Friday night, and you announce to your partner and/or family that this is going to be a celebratory dinner because you got three new clients.
You tell your loved ones about your clients, about the work that you’ve been doing, and you celebrate your successes in that moment.
Maybe you typically go for a half-hour walk in the morning, and as a celebration, you turn that into a longer, more indulgent two-hour walk. You honor the fact that you finished a quarter’s worth of newsletters this week, and you’re so excited about that.
Perhaps you regularly go get your nails done, but this particular week, you announce that this is a celebratory nail experience. While you’re sitting at the salon, you take the time to recognize and be proud of your accomplishments – maybe you tell the nail artist about the event you just finished.
Your celebration might also be something special that you don’t normally do. Maybe you book a facial or a massage or take the day off to go to a museum.
The two key elements of this celebration are to intentionally plan it into your schedule and to talk about and express it – even if it’s just telling the person who’s selling you a ticket at the museum, “Hey, I took off work to spend the day here because I got three new clients this week.”
Celebrating with someone, even if it’s a complete stranger, allows us to mark the moment. And when we mark the moment, we remind ourselves to find the joy in it.
We can shake things up. We can stop our minds from jumping immediately to the next goal. We can stay present and recognize that the moment we’re in is truly special.
So my invitation to you this week is to open your planner and schedule a celebration corresponding to a particular goal or task.
Stop and celebrate – because you do deserve it.
