Celebrate Your Success
Bud / 
55 Comments / 
February 5th, 2010 / 
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I recently received an email from one of our readers. The email went on to list an admittedly impressive number of goals he was able to accomplish over the last year or so. He received a 4.0 GPA in his first semester of college, lost 14 kg, began running 3 days a week, and cut down on his excessive gaming. Because I’m also freshman in college this year, the list made me smile and I couldn’t help but feel great for him.
But there was one problem: Despite his impressive accomplishments, the tone of his email was somber and sad, because like many, he wrestled with the endless cycle with self improvement. Even though he reached all his goals he was empty on the inside.
It wasn’t long before I began to see myself behind the sadness of his email. I quickly realized his situation wasn’t all that out of the ordinary. I couldn’t help but empathize with him because I had been there before.
Far too often we subscribe to the ridiculous notion that if we aren’t improving all the time that we aren’t worthy, which I have come to discover is absolute bullshit. Our happiness doesn’t come from simply reaching our goals but rather celebrating them.
Today’s post is about helping you break away from that endless cycle of improvement and instead learn to celebrate your successes both big and small.
Celebrate The Small Steps
Change happens one step at a time, you won’t reach your goals within a matter of days. That’s why it’s important to celebrate each step of the way. It has been said that it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. Yet so many people continue to forget how important small steps really are. You may think that meditating for 15 minutes each day won’t help you in the long run. You may think that going for that walk every evening won’t help keep you fit. Yet the reality is, small movement never fails to produce results in the end.
When you start small and see that you are capable of succeeding ( you ARE capable) you then have a foundation to work with. With each goal you reach take a moment and reflect on what you’ve done. I literally get chills when I think back to where I was two years ago. It’s because I took small steps (and celebrated the milestones in the process) that I am here today.
How do you celebrate? That’s entirely up to you. For you, it may be taking a day off of work and spending the day with your kids. Or maybe after reaching that fitness goal of yours you finally take family vacation to the beach. Be creative. Do anything that makes you feel good, assuming it’s legal of course. ;)
Just because you’re taking small steps doesn’t mean that those steps aren’t worthy. Appreciate and celebrate every step you take no matter how small it may be.
Celebrate Don’t Stagnate
There’s a myth that many self improvement readers seem to have fallen for lately, and that is you have to be at your best 100 percent of the time. This myth causes a great deal of pain for those who believe it, because it’s literally an impossible level to sustain. The truth is you can’t be at the top of your game all the time. In an ideal world perhaps, but realistically speaking it’s out of the question.
I’m all about hard work, but even the hardest of workers know when it’s time to take time off to just have fun. Yet it’s important not to confuse celebrate with stagnate. When you celebrate you’re rejuvenating yourself. When you stagnate you’re simply asking to be left behind. Nonetheless, the self improvement path shouldn’t own your life.
It’s OK to take a break and just be human. It’s OK to celebrate your accomplishments. It’s OK to mess up and not beat yourself up over it. Periodically, I take a day or two to just let loose. I’ll go drinking with friends or stay up late doing nothing productive. During that time I throw all the self improvement ideas out the door and just be the 18 year old that I am. You can do the same.
Hard work without celebration is a burn out waiting to happen. There has to be balance. If you’re taking action just so you can use your cool red pen to cross off an item on your to do-list you’re producing nothing of value. You should be proud enough of your goals that you have no problem celebrating when you reach them. Again, don’t confuse celebrating with being cocky or arrogant because there is a difference.
Drop the “self improvement” mindset and just bask in your current level of personal growth. You can’t grow without rest, everyone needs a break. When you celebrate your successes you feel good about yourself, and as a result it’s likely you will continue to make a difference.
Celebrate Both Failure and Success
While I believe it’s important to celebrate your success I also believe it’s important to celebrate your failures. Next time you fail try this: Celebrate your failure. Be grateful for the opportunity to learn. Be thankful for the reminder that you’re not perfect. Value your relationship with failure for it will one day introduce you to success.
Nobody enjoys to fail, but those who embrace it tend to be more successful. What is failure anyway? Another way to say lesson learned? Over the past few years failed miserably, but I’ve also had my share of successes. On the success side, I’ve co-authored an e-book, shared my message with thousands of people, and have become a generally happier person.
However the path hasn’t always been smooth. Over the past few years I’ve also lost a best friend, battled with depression, and struggled with the ins and outs of blogging. I’ve bought products that ended up being worthless, I’ve wasted time networking with the wrong people, and said a bunch of stupid shit. Yet, when I look back at my failures I know that they were invaluable in bringing me to where I am today.
The truth is, right now you’re exactly where you need to be.
Next Stop Happiness
The paradox of the self improvement obsession is that it often makes us feel worthless instead of raise us up. The purpose of self improvement isn’t for you to become addicted to the constant need to improve. Self improvement must be a choice not a reflex.
Stop looking at happiness as a final destination. Happiness doesn’t lie in a destination but rather lies in the transportation of your life journey. Do you walk down your life path with open eyes and heart? Do you celebrate your success? Or do you remain a servant to the never ending path of improvement? Do your goals inspire you? Or are they just a means to an end?
Happiness isn’t a stop. Improvement isn’t a goal. Your inspiration comes from the fact that you are alive. Disregard those silly patterns that say you’re unworthy. Congratulate yourself on all you’ve done. You are enough.
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Great article Bud. I like to focus on core tasks and then celebrate them when I’m done. I now prefer to work less and celebrate rather than doing low value tasks all day as an excuse to be busy.
Glad to hear that man. Sometimes we get so caught up the whole “self improvement” thing that we forget that it’s OK to be human.
What do you do to celebrate?
Hey Bud!
Nice post man! I actually just wrote an article today that is slightly similar to this one
Lots of little steps amount to big results over time!
Have an awesome weekend!
Diggy
Thanks dude. Look forward to reading it!
This is fantastic post, I love it bud.
All personal development is just a big POS if your are not able to be OK with yourself NOW – by which I do not mean don’t do anything. Just be you and be fine, do not force anything. And when you achieve something new and great, you will be able to celebrate.
Hey Tom! Thanks for the comment. What a lot of people don’t realize is that you can be OK with who you are NOW and STILL look to improve.
Spot on Bud! This is the one thing I see time and time again when coaching people … it’s so easy to see what we haven’t done or done wrong but learning to celebrate our successes and acknowledge our achievements makes such a difference.
Awesome start dude
I agree with you, you raise some insightful points.
One of the turning points for me was giving up the notion of being perfect, and believing I would be happy when I “got where I needed to be”.
This led, like you, to depression, an unhealthy self-help obsession, regular stress and a near constant low level of anxiety – like an air conditioner buzzing in the background.
I figured that when I achieved all my crazily ambitious goals, I’d be “happy”. Ironically, it was OK to be miserable and stressed in the mean time while I got there
Hilariously, as soon as I gave up the fallacy, life became f*cking awesome.
Now I truly see life as a game. If I “win”, awesome, I’ll have a big house and lots of toys and travel non-stop and have mad fun listening to hippity hop all day and wearing expensive Jordan trainers (got some in Vegas… sick)
Conversely, if I “lose”, don’t get any of this, end up bankrupt and homeless and out on my arse – I honestly don’t think I care.
So what? Really? I failed… Oh well. Do you care? Any of you?
I reckon YOU are too focussed on yourself to care about little old me making a giant balls-up of things… And rightly so. And if I’m ok with that… Surely then I’ve got nothing to worry about?!
You gots to be happy with who you are now, and make every day fun. If you can’t do that because of the work you do, or the relationship you’re in, CHANGE IT!!
The only thing that stops us is ourselves. Crack our crazy brains, and we realise that actually life is a great, happy adventure. It actually takes a lot of work / social conditioning to believe otherwise.
Think back to when you was a kid. Would you ever believe you’d grow into a stressed, anxious, worry-fuelled “grown up”??
Sod it. Be a kid again. Be happy now. Or, if you wanna be angry today, do that. Wanna take a day off to stay in bed and watch porn and crap TV? Why not? It’s your call. Do what you wanna do!!
Just don’t pretend life suddenly gets good when you get X,Y, and Z in your life. You KNOW it don’t work like that.
One last thing Bud – you’ve convinced me to go out and get a little wobbly tonight. Life’s too short.
Cheers dude.
Glad I could be of service dude. Cheers
You touched on some excellent points Bud. The need to take a break from the daily grind is essential. A lot of folk swear by exercise as a great release of tension from work… so even that can be a way of celebrating. Its like Pavlovs dogs… without the treat the activity can become stale and uninviting.
Its the journey that counts.. not necessarily the destination! Corny, but true.
Rod
Absolutely man.. you can celebrate anyway you deem fit! I personally like to take a nice long walk or have a deep conversation with one of my buddies. Thanks for stopping by Roderick.
Great post man. You are very right about this. A lot of times people tend to think about the final goal and forget to enjoy all that they have gotten done along the way. I just worked with a company that had the same problem. Everyone worked hard to make some changes and management never celebrated all the progress, just that they were not where they wanted to be. SO this goes for everyone that has goals. Looks to me like your hitting it hard out of the gate.
You better check in Monday..
Insightful post. We tend to focus on our failures and what we didn’t accomplish. We forget about our successes. Thanks for the reminder to celebrate our successes — both big and small.
Bud,
You speak the truth.
The story of the college student reminds me of the experience of meeting an important personal goal about a year ago, and feeling completely empty the following day. The words behind the feeling were something like “OK, I got there. Now what?”
Your post helps fill in the answer to that “now what?” question.
-jack
I think it’s really easy to get caught up in the “I must constantly improve” mindset. Enjoying the moment is not stagnantion, and the sooner we realize that, the easier it is to celebrate where we are in the moment.
Celebrate..
This is an awesome post the hits very close to home for me.
As a person with a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me I could always be doing a little better trying to compete with a similar nagging voice in the back of my head trying to convince me that I’d be better off just being a slacker, I’m have spent a life time looking for some level of balance between being all I can be and just being what I am. What I learned is that I am always on my way ‘there,’ because in essence, ‘there’ is pretty much the end of the line.
Learning to enjoy the path to the destination, despite the rough patches and more than occasional wrong turns, is the key to my personal sanity. I say ‘is’ because I’m still working on learning to enjoy the path. But I have at least accepted the fact that I have a problem, and put in motion a plan to find a solution to that problem.
Glad it helped man.
Sounds to be like you’re on path to hit your planet B.
This post is made of awesomesauce which is the highest compliment that I can give. As someone who felt like I had to be super focused on changing when I was your age (my family upbringing is way different than my life but it took time and change to get here), I’ve been able to slow down a bit on that and just enjoy things in the process more. I’ll never stop striving to be better but I am learning to enjoy the journey of both wins and losses.
Great post.
Shucks Shannon, you made me blush. Glad I could live up to your standards
In all seriousness, I’m glad to hear you’re learning to deal with both the ups and downs of our life journey.
I especially like: ” I’ll never stop striving to be better but I am learning to enjoy the journey of both wins and loses.”
^ right on!
I will have to disagree with why he is feeling empty. I have written a blog post about this. Here’s an excerpt:
“People lead unhappy lives because they cannot tell the difference between the means and the ends.”
And your situation, your friend just confused his means as them being goals. Self development has to be purposeful. If just develop ourselves just because, then of course we will feel empty. However, if we develop ourselves with a goal of achieving our life purpose then we will never feel empty.
All of our actions must be aligned with our purpose in life, otherwise they will leave us feeling empty on the inside.
Best,
Tomas
Great post Bud. This couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. I’ve felt really stuck the past few days even though I am making great progress on my 2010 goals. I was troubled by the fact that I was doing what I wanted to be doing, but still feeling frustrated with life. I will definitely just go let loose and have fun this weekend. Thanks.
Why do you think you’re stuck Ben?
I can relate to taking small steps to improve yourself. A year ago I suffered from severe depression and paralyzing social anxiety. I stayed in my house all the time, did not have a job or do anything basically. Today I am enrolled in college, go to the gym 5 days a week, and reconnected with some friends. Throughout all my struggles I never would imagine I would go back to school because I would be too scared to and anxiety wouldn’t let me succeed in college. It took small steps to make it to where I am now, and from there I can build on those steps and am looking to graduate and find a career.
Congrats man! Sound’s like you’ve had a rough journey to say the least, but I’m glad you were able to rise above. Throw me an email if you ever need some help!
Great post, very encouraging and it motivated me to celebrate my own success and even the failures! Thanks!
I agre whole-heartedly with the concept of celebrating failure. I think it’s a powerful skill.
I would be interested to know some ways that you have done this. I think they would make inspiring stories.
thanks for this post. It is a real encouragement.
Thanks for the comment Carlos.. Perhaps I could go into more detail on my next posts.
Wonderful post Bud, loved it.
Nice article and I totally agree that you have to celebrate your successes! Otherwise there is no happiness just a continual achievement of goals.
Thanks Richard
yes, i sometimes do forget to celebrate my success and just keep moving forward, thanks for reminding us
Great post. I have written a book called Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big. I am happy to report, in light of your post, that Chapter 6 is titled “Pause and Celebrate the Moment.” Leaders in their desire to continuously improve forget to pause and celebrate with an employee who perhaps just put in the effort of a lifetime. I’ve had people show me handwritten notes I had given them 15 years earlier celebrating their achievement and they had saved the note because it meant so much to them. Leaders can forget how powerful their simple acts of celebration can positively impact others.
Great post Bud, although I never have to “drop the self-improvement mindset” because part of that mindset for me is taking time off for relaxation and leisure. The whole reason I got into self-improvement is so that I can enjoy life more – it would be foolish and counterproductive if I found myself in a constant work cycle that I am unable to break out of. It’s all about balance.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Good point Steven. What I meant by that statement is that we sometimes get so caught up in improvement that we forget it’s OK to mess up. It’s great to hear you know that rest is important. You’re absolutely right balance is key.
This article definitely resonates me. I remember going to an Anthony Robbins seminar about two years ago and one of the things he covered was how being successful didn’t necessarily mean you would be fulfilled.
Some experiences later and I can completely understand that. When you achieve your goals, and your completely focused on the next, and the next, it’s a vicious cycle.
Healthy improvement is great, but obsessively chasing goals doesn’t lead to the fulfillment we want.
Great article! This is very relevant to me. I find it hard to stop and remember all the successes I have had because I seem to always veer back to “the thing I did wrong” today, this week, this month etc. And I chide myself about all the things I “should have done better” instead of acknowledging what I did actually achieve and not keep focusing on all the things I haven’t done and all the things I need to do. A very negative cycle that I’d like to break.
Very good post. Balance is the key word.
Great article Bud. Its hard work if you don’t take the time to enjoy your successes
Nice post. I’ve got a bad habit of overlooking small successes – more I read on the benefits the more I consciously acknowledge to celebrate my successes.
All good points.
Another way to look at achieving happiness (or success) is to remember you can’t eat an elephant in one bite. Meaning, it takes time, commitment and deliberate effort. Over time, however, progress will be made.
Absolutely Alex. Thanks for stopping by! Keep inspiring at the Bridge Maker.
Hey Bud it’s me Jonathan. he one who sent you the email about the book. Great to see your on this great blog man. Keep up the good work. Plus i sent you a response email today. let me know if you can work something out!
I’ll send you an email later today.
This is a very important point that you’re making Bud. the notion that we must take time away from our pursuits and just be is essential. Sometimes you have to take two steps back in order to move forward. And sometimes it’s good to just stand still and survey the landscape.
Understand what you’ve accomplished, and enjoy the benefits of having accomplished it.
It goes both ways though. When I was younger, perhaps I allowed myself to celebrate my successes for too long. Be careful not too rest too much on your laurels. Finding the balance is important.
But giving yourself the time to enjoy, reflect, hang, and define new goals is a must. I work hard so I can take more time off.
Hey Gianpaolo..
Yeah man. Balance is essential. As suggested in the article, there is a difference between celebrating and becoming stagnate! Thanks for the comment.
I’d summarize your post to the following points:
1. Celebrating success of accomplished small steps is far as important as celebrating success of the final result.
2. Failures, pain and other similar things are natural parts of our life.
3. Happiness is not a state but a process.
Yeah, I have a habit of accomplishing things and not taking time to celebrate. I’m so focused on achievement. But you’re right you have to celebrate your successes. It makes you feel good and who wants to burn themselves out form overwork?
Oops, wrong thread:) Meant for the “recycle post”. Will post there!
Great post!
I fully agree in that we need to take the time to celebrate our accomplishments. Pushing past our comfort zones and making improvements is never enjoyable, but only staying in that state of discomfort is never the end goal. The end goal is to push past those comfort levels so that we are able to enjoy more. It’s a shame that people will keep themselves in that state of discomfort just for the sake of “personal development” without ever taking the time to realize how far they’ve come and enjoy it. Again, great post!
Take care,
Ben
This is great, you really remind me of myself, especially freshman year in college. I’m a 4.0 student, obsessed with hyperproductivity, and absolutely love finding new ways to make myself better than I was yesterday. This post echoed my thinking exactly up until about 2 months ago when I had a major life-changing experience…again.
Three years ago, at the age of 19, I had lung surgery of a spontaneously collapsed left lung. After number of recurrences over the past 3 years, it took me out again about two months ago and my surgeon said that I would have to have a much bigger surgery to prevent it from happening again. I’m ridiculously active and last term I was working at 200% for 3 months straight (unbelievably productive but very unbalanced) so I was not happy, to say the least, that I’d have to have surgery.
Eleven days ago I had open lung surgery–a procedure that’s harder to recover from and more painful than open heart surgery–but it’s shown me something that almost no one gets the chance to experience and that even fewer take advantage of given the opportunity.
I had about 6 weeks of downtime during which I couldn’t do anything because of my collapsed lung. During the first two weeks, I was stagnate and borderline depressed because of the situation I was thrust into. After those couple of weeks, I decided I had to make a choice: either give it everything I had and make the best of the situation or I wouldn’t recover from the surgery and I would be basically crippled and in pain for the rest of my life.
For the next two weeks, I did hours and hours of research on everything related to my surgery/recovery including hours of questioning surgeons and specialists. Then, the two weeks before surgery, because there was literally nothing out there about dealing with the day-to-day of pre/post-op from major surgeries, I decided to video blog my experience to help others. I’m 11 days out of surgery and no one, including my doctors or myself, can believe how well and how fast I’m recovering.
I tell this story because I no longer think happiness is a matter of celebrating both successes and failures–this is still thinking in terms of success and failure, which I think is a false dichotomy. Rather, living in the moment and not thinking in terms of success and failure has really brought me the most meaning and happiness.
The self-improvement world seems to be stuck in this weird, nebulous world of meta-experience–there are so many strategies and perspectives that we apply to our experience when it should really be the other way around. I’ve realized that it’s very self limiting to confine myself to thinking in terms of success and failure because it’s like choosing between a hamburger or a hot dog in an entire world of food.
People seem to forget that life is about the journey… not about getting it done. If everything was complete– then what? Extreme boredom? Death?
We all just have to learn to enjoy wherever we are at the moment, rather than constantly being dissatisfied with where we are not. It’s like taking a stroll down the river, but being unhappy because you’re not at the destination yet. I say… brave the currents and enjoy the ride.
Stop looking at happiness as a final destination. Happiness doesn’t lie in a destination but rather lies in the transportation of your life journey..This part is striking,
Sometimes we get overwhelmed thinking of how we could be able to reached success. However, its not just about reaching your goal thats important, its actually the process of how to get there.and we have to realize that a journey to a life time begins with a single step.
Thanks for this post.
Wow, thank you so much for that article
I knew that something was wrong, and you just seem to have the knack of working out what it was.
What you said about personal growth being a journey, not a destination has made me feel a million times better. i honestly can’t thank you enough for the sense of relief you have given me.
I really admire the fact that you are 18. It just seems like everyone else that i have ever heard of is over 25, and sometimes i feel like i wont really be successful until i am that old.
Pretty much everything in this article rang true to me. Now that i am in my final year of schooling, the HSC (which is the massive Australian test that measures whether you will succeed or fail in life, according to most people) is coming up and i just feel so guilty if i am doing anything but studying.
But i really do need time to hang out with friends, visit my parents, sneak into the school to recover my friend’s homework assignemnts and all that.
Oh i guess my point is that i do pretty much everything in extremes – completely laidback, internet surfing everyday vs hours and hours of study and whatnot and im scared of reverting to the former.
Which is pretty stupid because i fully realise that the HSC doesn’t even matter in the long run
hahha sorry for that massive ramble
i hope you keep doing what you are doing because you have really just managed to make me feel 1000 times better about life