You’ve got 24 hours in each day to eat, sleep, love, work, play, and grow. We know, logically, of course that today’s 24 hour span is the same duration as yesterday’s. Yet sometimes those days feel much longer and sometimes they feel much shorter.
The demands on our time, the amount of activity we attempt to squish into the same small space, the sense of urgency or overwhelm that we attach to the things we do in that span, can alter our perception of that time.
Parents know this. If you’ve watched your child don a cap and gown and walk across the stage to accept their high school diploma or their first degree, you know that time seems to have moved at lightning speed. This young adult before you was just learning to toddle the day before, right? Where has time gone? If you’re that young adult, however, it’s been a lifetime of working hard to reach your goals and it’s felt, at least at times, that it’s taken forever to get to this finish line.
The days sometimes feel long, but the years are short. It’s important to make them all count, to celebrate what can be celebrated at each step, and to never give up on your dreams.
Your goals may change over time. That new graduate has a certain vision for their future. As they step into the world to bring those dreams to life, they may find that their priorities have shifted or the things they thought they’d enjoy (and excel at) look different than what they really want to pursue now. That’s okay.
The goals themselves may change but the overall direction is always still forward motion. Celebrate the movement forward, as well as the self-discovery that led to the new direction.
Taking a moment to savor your success – whether big or little – can generate a host of benefits. For example, researchers Michele Tugade and Barbara Fredrickson found that positive emotions can help promote creativity, social connection, personal resources, and resilience.
Taking that one step further, research by Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff, found that savoring the moment – including pausing to celebrate or rejoice in our small wins and milestones – naturally generates positive emotions. Those are just two examples of the research that’s out there.
Your team has taken on the task of launching a new product. There are a lot of steps between here and the successful roll-out of this great new idea. You don’t need to wait for the finish line to feel a sense of accomplishment. The plan you and your team have created should have built in milestones to move you from step one to completion. Take the time to recognize achieving those.
Not only that, but take a moment to celebrate when you’ve overcome unexpected hurdles. Celebrating milestones helps you measure progress and growth. Acknowledging these mid-points can motivate you forward toward the next milestone. It gives encouragement and hope. This application helps propel you forward with your career targets, and your personal targets.
You can, in fact, lose those pounds that feel impossible, and your success in dropping the first ten and developing a habit of tracking your meals and work-outs proves it. You can in fact pass that class you took a leap of faith and signed up for, and your first graded paper is proof that you’re up to the task.
Taking the time to recognize progress and small successes can help flip your focus from the challenge to the potential win. Creating space to recognize your ability to overcome a hurdle, helps you reposition your mindset to view the next challenge as a potential opportunity for growth vs. a potential set-back. It’s helping you remember you have a proven track record of working your way through problems and finding your way to workable solutions. It changes your outlook from “What if I can’t?” to “What if I do?”
Celebrating doesn’t have to involve a lot of fanfare. It can be as simple as recognizing the folks (including yourself!) that got you to this checkpoint. It can be space to share examples of wins in your next team meeting. It can be an email to your supervisor to highlight the efforts of a team member that positively impacted your project (and copying that team member on it!).
This is another thing science supports. Expressions of gratitude (whether you’re expressing it or receiving it) can release dopamine and serotonin, which in turn makes us happier. Grateful people in general report fewer health issues like headaches, poor sleep, and stomach issues. In other words, grateful people are happier and healthier. Celebrate your wins with gratitude!
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