Celebrating success (and why you should do it!)
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” - Oprah Winfrey
I love this quote from Oprah, and I find it to be absolutely true. The more you highlight the good in your life, the easier it is to find.
There are many reasons why you should celebrate your success as an author in 2018. Being an author is a very solitary thing - there's no end-of-year Christmas bonus when the boss congratulates you on a job well done, and there's no award handed out for Employee of the Year (even though sometimes, I feel there should be).
By nature, authors spend a lot of time working alone, and that means it can be easy to gloss over the success you've achieved in the 365 days just gone by.
Here are some reasons why celebrating success is important:
1. It feels good. Seriously. Treating yourself to a nice dinner, a relaxing massage, a delicious wine or a date night with someone you love feels good. And if you do it in honour of something you've achieved, it feels even better. Celebrating releases those good endorphins, the dopamine in our brain that make us feel like we're a bottle of champagne on the inside, and damn it, who doesn't want to feel good?
2. It can set you up to achieve more. Associating our work - writing - with the word celebration can be a very powerful motivator. It means that on those days when it's hard, when we just don't want to do it, there's a greater chance we will be able to get out of that funk and sit in front of our computer - because we've trained ourselves psychologically that writing is worth celebrating. It's a positive thing. No, I'm not saying a fancy dinner every now and then is the solution to writer's block. But what I am saying is that little things like this can make a difference overall.
3. It strengthens your mindset. Achieving your goals requires the right state of mind, and having a mindset primed for success is a part of that. How do we achieve a success mindset? Sure, affirmation and visualisation are a big help. But so is celebration. Celebrating our successes sets us up mentally to already view ourselves as winners. It gives us the confidence to go bigger and badder when we chase our dreams next time, because we've done so well before. On the flip side, not celebrating our success can be like giving the mental finger to ourselves. You didn't do well enough, it can say, and negative self-talk like that can not only impact your motivation but can also affect the way you show up to work when you do.
So in the weeks to come, as well as focusing on your big, beautiful goals for 2019, I encourage you to think about all the fabulous things you've done in the year gone by. Whether you've written 1,000 words or 100,000. Whether you've released a book or released a blog post. Whether you've landed a contract or found the perfect story idea - it's time to celebrate. Let's head into 2019 with a bang.
If you're looking for more ways to improve your author business in 2019, check out our 30-Day 10-Minute Author Business Challenge, kicking off January 2. More details here.
