Happy (almost!) new year! If you’re like a lot of entrepreneurs, you’re ready for a clean slate and fresh start. But before you dive into the new year, I encourage you to spend some time celebrating the wins you had in 2021.
Didn’t have the best year ever? That’s an even better reason to celebrate the wins you did have—and we both know you had some wins over the last 12 months. Those wins might not be what you set out to achieve at the beginning of the year but if you’re still here in late December, you did something right!
On this week’s short and sweet episode, I’m sharing about the value and importance of celebrating wins regularly, how to make it a regular practice, and what to do with your list of wins when it’s ready.
Grab the Celebrating Wins Worksheet to help you track your wins!
Links and Resources:
- The Progress Principle
- Episode 109: Ideas and Inspiration for Annual Planning with Melina Palmer
- The One Thing
- What’s On Your Plate workshop
Time Stamps:
[0:45] – The power of celebrating our wins
[1:18] – How I celebrate a great week
[1:46] – Reflection and recognition
[2:04] – The Progress Principle
[2:38] – The single most important event leading to positive work life
[2:53] – What happens when we don’t celebrate wins
[3:20] – Small steps lead to biggest accomplishments
[3:40] – The One Thing approach
[4:08] – How to start capturing your wins
[5:15] – How to grow that accomplishment list
[5:59] – You didn’t fail if you didn’t reach a big goal
Transcription
Amber Hawley 0:01
Business owners are increasingly being pulled in so many directions, feeling like they aren’t reaching their full potential in business in life despite their type aways. With my background as a therapist, entrepreneur, and as a.com dropout with ADHD, I interview and coach high achieving business owners like you who want to stop struggling for success by using psychological systems, strategies, and the occasional care plantation.
Amber Hawley 0:27
This is the Easily Distracted Entrepreneur, your place to slay overwhelmed perfectionism and shiny object syndrome so that you can get done what matters most to you. Happy almost new year.
Amber Hawley 0:43
As we are all about to celebrate the end of one year, and the hope that we have for what 2022 can bring. I thought there is no better way to close up a year, then talking about the power of celebrating our wins. There are so many ways to celebrate our achievements. When we achieve a big goal or we do something special for ourselves. We celebrate with family and friends commemorating it in some small or big way, we can create rituals of celebration or incentives for ourselves.
Amber Hawley 1:16
One of my small rituals for celebrating a good week is having a great meal with my favorite wine, and watching my favorite movie or show. It’s all about joy and relaxation. A bigger incentive that I have for myself is when I finally reached my goal of being completely debt free, which includes my house is that I plan to get myself a vintage Chanel purse that I have been dreaming about for years. But another important way that we celebrate our achievements is through reflection and recognition. You can of course add a reward or ritual to this process.
Amber Hawley 1:56
But the important thing is to recognize and capture all of our wins, especially the small ones. There is this fantastic book that talks about this that came out in 2011. It’s called the progress principle by Teresa, Amma bile and Stephen Kramer, who are both Harvard professors. I really hope I didn’t slaughter her name, but I literally could not find anywhere where I heard somebody say it out loud. In this book, they state that inner work life is the continuous stream of emotions, perceptions and motivations that people experience throughout their work days. And as they react to and make sense of the events of the workday.
Amber Hawley 2:38
The single most important events leading to positive inner work life is making progress in meaningful work. Even seemingly incremental progress or small wins. This is the progress principle. Not celebrating our wins cannot just lead to us feeling unmotivated, but it can lead to burnout. There is a big difference between celebrating our achievements, and then setting bigger, more challenging goals for ourselves in our businesses. And having a constantly moving target.
Amber Hawley 3:10
One builds a sense of accomplishment, self esteem and momentum, the ladder builds a sense of not being quite good enough, and it’s demotivating. It’s the small steps that lead to our biggest accomplishments. And yet it can be easy to gloss over or ignore those small wins because all we can see are all the other things we need to do. Taking time to celebrate what you have achieved allows you to recognize the progress that you have made, which helps you stay motivated.
Amber Hawley 3:40
Ideally, you will take time each day to acknowledge those wins to sustain that positive mindset, which is why I wholeheartedly adopted the one thing approach to my day that Molina and I discussed in last week’s episode. It allows you a sense of accomplishment each day by setting a reasonable to do list. But it’s also important to celebrate those accomplishments that daily work has led to the more frequently you do this, the more you will notice and remember. Reality is we often forget those smaller things because we have a lot going on. I would suggest doing either a weekly or monthly review where you can capture these wins you can experiment with which works better for you and your schedule.
Amber Hawley 4:23
As a part of my yearly planning, I create a list of wins that I’m proud of accomplishments I’ve had, and goals that I have achieved. It’s much easier to create this list if you’re capturing those things on a weekly or monthly basis. However, you can still do this exercise even if you are looking at your whole year. This is important for creating momentum going into next year and it feels good.
Amber Hawley 4:48
So I want you to create a list of 25 to 50 things that you accomplished in 2021 If you are like many of my type a perfectionist peeps out there. You may be thinking how can I find 25 things, when I can’t even think of three, I assure you there are way more than what immediately springs to mind. Give yourself some time, grab your favorite beverage. And really think back to all you have done in the last year. Maybe after you’ve come up with your initial list, you can scroll through your social media.
Amber Hawley 5:20
If you are somebody who posts things you’re excited about. This might help jog your memory. Or you can go through your calendar, or your finished items in your task management program. You could also talk to somebody who supports you in your business, or your business bestie or partner. If you want reminders of the things that you have done. Push yourself to list more than you think is possible. It’s a great exercise in noticing the positive.
Amber Hawley 5:47
And by the way, this can also be personal accomplishments. This doesn’t just have to be about business, because it’s about your business and your life. It can be hard if we didn’t reach a big goal that we had set for ourselves in the past year to feel like we failed. But it’s not true. And this list can be that proof to ourselves. This exercise can be very powerful if you take the time to do it. I even have a worksheet if you need a little encouragement or guidance in generating your list and you can get the link in the show notes. Or you can just put this in your favorite notebook or journal as well. Make it easy for yourself.
Amber Hawley 6:28
I hope you will take time to write this list and share it with somebody who cheers you on and then do something special for yourself as appreciation for all you did in 2021. Celebrate yourself and the fact that you are still here and still showing up. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. And I look forward to connecting with you in 2022 and don’t forget if you want to make 2022 the year that you achieve that big goal and do so with ease and joy.
Amber Hawley 6:57
Then join me and some other amazing people in the what’s on your plate workshop, which is still $100 off through Friday. We are going to end the idea that we have to suffer for success. To get more information head on over to Amberhawley.com/2022
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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