Celebrating Accomplishments

I admit it. I'm a hypocrite. I tell my clients to celebrate their milestone achievements, but I rarely do it myself. Take my upcoming book, "A Manager's Guide to Coaching" for example. Did my co-author and I celebrate when we got an agent? No..we panicked on how to write a book proposal. Did we pop the champagne when we got a publisher? Uhhh...we got excited on the phone for about 10 minutes; does that count? Did we party when the manuscript was complete? Hmmm..I think we managed to email each other a congratulatory email a week later. And now that our book is available on Amazon.com and about to hit the bookstores, have we celebrated? No. In fact, it took a congratulatory email from a friend to remind me that I should probably plan a party.

Don't get me wrong. I AM excited! This book is one of my major life dreams. I'm secretly smiling on the inside; I'm just not very good at celebrating on the outside. Why? The usual excuses. "I'm too busy. It's not *that* big of a deal. I'll celebrate after we sell the first 100,000 copies." The problem is that I'm always planning for the future instead of living out today. I'm always saying "When this happens...then I'll celebrate." Hello? This has happened! I have published a book with a major publishing house! If now is not the time to celebrate, when is?!

I should know better. After all, I am an executive coach who tells people to take the time to celebrate their success. I know the positive psychological impact celebrations can bring to a team and to individuals. My husband is great at celebrating. He's always getting a DVD or a new gadget for himself because he reached one of his goals. I'm secretly jealous; I want to get a new DVD or toy for myself! But he's not stopping me. No one is stopping me but myself, my internal stories and my external patterns.

So guess what? I'm going to make the time to celebrate with a big party. And you're all invited! Why? Because slowing down to relish this major milestone will help me move forward to the next milestone of selling 100,000 books. It's an important step to recognize all of my accomplishments, big and small.

So if I can do it, you can too. What are you going to celebrate today?