Celebrate accomplishments

My desk-top calendar has a page for each day, which can be torn off to reveal the next day with its inspirational message. One day last week this message appeared: "Fly high. Be brilliant. Celebrate all your accomplishments."

I always encourage clients to both celebrate successes and grieve losses. But sometimes I forget to celebrate my own accomplishments. Last week I looked through old issues of the magazine for which I served as managing editor for years; I wanted to find an article someone else had written. In the process, I came across several of my own articles—some of which were quite personal to me. As I read a couple of them, I thought of how much I love writing. And I realized that I really do have a gift for it, an awareness that got somewhat clouded over after I was Reduced In Force from that job.

This was a good reminder to me: Celebrate your accomplishments, Sonia. Nothing can take away from what I did in those 22 years at that magazine, and I should not have let that happen. 

Perhaps you grew up with societal messages that I did: "Pride goes before a fall" and other similar admonishments. But celebrating our achievements and successes isn't about pride. It's about being grateful for gifts we've been given—and using them fully. It's OK to say that we like what we've done! It's really good self-care and self-love. And when we tend to that, we have so much more love for everyone else in our lives, too.

What can you celebrate today?