A few years ago, I wrote a post on the importance of celebrating your victories. I’ve learned a lot since then and I’d like to share more of my thoughts in this post.
In Letting Go, David Hawkins mainly talks about releasing negative emotions. However, he also describes the importance of letting go of the resistance to feeling positive emotions. Some people have a hard time allowing themselves to feel happiness, excitement, joy, peace, love, gratitude, etc. Maybe someone close to them punished them for expressing joy or otherwise taught them that it’s not ok to feel positive emotions. Even if those people have left their lives, they may still hear those voices whenever they start feeling really good; that can serve to shut down those good feelings. By noticing that resistance and allowing it to pass, it can be released so that it no longer blocks the positive emotions.
I’ve learned how important it is to celebrate my wins, big and small alike. For a long time, I would win a victory and just move on without realizing or enjoying my accomplishment. I still do that at times. Whenever I don’t celebrate a win, part of me says “So all that effort was for nothing? Ok, no more of that, then.” If I’m real quiet, I can hear that and it serves as a reminder to celebrate. Celebrating is a way to reward myself for the effort it took to achieve that win. In this way, celebrating wins paves the way for more wins.
Keep in mind that you didn’t “just” do something. You accomplished something you once thought impossible. That’s huge! So what if you did it in a sloppy, meandering, or otherwise imperfect manner? That’s the first step and it’s often the hardest step to take. Celebrate! Next time you enter that situation, you’ll have some experience with succeeding when you previously only knew failure. Your success and smoothness with that success will only increase as you continue accumulating experience and celebrating each win.
So many people spend their whole lives mourning their losses and a few seconds, if that, celebrating their wins. They might not think that their wins are big enough or impressive enough to celebrate. The people around them might not think they’ve done anything special. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of your accomplishments. All that matters is that you appreciate and celebrate your wins. Maybe you showed yourself some kindness where you normally are incredibly hard on yourself. Maybe you reached a new milestone with your health. Maybe you reconciled with an old friend after a falling-out. Whatever it is, big or small, you’ve accomplished something great and you deserve to feel great about it.