Where in your life can you celebrate you?
a little: โHip, hip, Hooray for ME!โ
A lot of my time as a coach is spent focused on the future as clients come to me unhappy with some aspect of their life. I teach them skills and tools to use for growth and then keep them accountable. We look at what they want and what action they will take to get there.ย This week, Iโd like to hit the pause button and celebrate where we are right now. Pausing to say: โYay Meโ is an important tool to help raise our overall level of content with life. What have you accomplished? How far have you come? Which of your actions can you celebrate?
For most of us, when we begin to answer โWhat have I accomplishedโ our brain first points out what we havenโt accomplished or what weโre not good at. We are really good at beating ourselves up and pointing out where we havenโt grown and what we havenโt done. We spend so much energy beating ourselves up and pointing out how weโre not good enough.ย
We are exceptionally good at UN-celebrating ourself and our gifts. Listen to yourself the next time someone tries to compliment you. If someone says: โthat shirt looks good on youโ or โyou did a nice job organizing that eventโ, you probably do one of two things: deflect or deny.ย
-Deflect-> You deflect the compliment by saying something like: โThis old thing? I got it at Target on the clearance rackโ or โI couldnโt have done it without Sallyโs helpโ
-Deny-> You deny the compliment by saying something like: โThat event? You must not have seen how the kids ate the snacks before the activityโ (pointing out all the ways the event wasnโt what you hoped for) or โThis shirt? But look at how it hugs my big belly!โย
We are skilled at deflecting and denying compliments to avoid any sort of celebration of ourselves. Why? Two main reasons:
1. We tell ourselves itโs presumptuous, even (gasp!) conceited, to acknowledge our greatness. ย
2. We tell ourselves that if we take a break from beating ourselves up we will never be motivated to make a change. As if, by reminding ourselves how big our thighs are or how much we suck as a housekeeper, we will be more inspired to make changes.ย
These are two faulty reasons to not celebrate ourselves because of the following: ย
- When we donโt pause to celebrate ourselves or to acknowledge an accomplishment, we send a message to ourself that we actually arenโt that great.
- When we donโt pause to celebrate how far weโve come and what weโve accomplished, we keep ourselves in a state of discontent. We continue on the treadmill of life without pausing to look at the view. We tell ourselves things like:
“Iโll be happy when….” or “Itโll be easier when…” or “Iโll do that when….”.ย
The problem is, by not taking time to celebrate what weโve accomplished, we focus on all the things that are wrong in our lives and all the things we still need to do. If all we do is measure where we need to go, instead of pausing to feel grateful for where weโve come, we set ourselves up for sadness. Why? Because there is no magical โthereโ. We will never get to a place where we just sit, smile, and coast. Thatโs called death.ย Life is about evolving and becoming that next best version of ourselves. We are never done. Take the time to pause along the way. Yes you can stop and smell those roses. The day we stop evolving is the day we die inside. Since there will always be a way for us to evolve to the next best version of ourself, we must pause to celebrate where we are and what we have.ย
How do we do this? Start with two small ways:
1) Accept a Compliment: The next time someone compliments you, say โthank youโ. Thatโs it. Two words. Think of it as a gift theyโre giving you and choose not to throw the gift back in their face.ย
2) Compliment Yourself: Think of something you did in the last 24 hours and pause to compliment yourself for doing it. Did you just complete a load of laundry? Finish a blog post (yay me!)? Make a difficult call? Stop what youโre doing and acknowledge that you did what you did. Donโt deflect or deny your compliment. Accept your compliment as the gift it is.ย
