Taking Time to Celebrate

Taking Time to Celebrate 

The time is finally here – a week from today I will be going back to college! After four years of fighting debilitating illnesses that robbed me of a normal life, I will finally be returning to school to complete a bachelor’s degree in Communications at Southern New Hampshire University-Online. While most people have at least their first degree by the time they are my age (25 years old), the ability to even go back to school is a huge deal for me. In realizing that, I chose to take a moment to celebrate with two of the most important people in my life and my biggest supporters – my grandparents.  So, we got some sparkling water, (which ended up tasting horrible, but that is another story!), and my grandpa made a toast. Our celebration was small and only a few minutes long, but the important thing was that we took a moment to recognize how far I have come and to celebrate this next big step in my life. Doing this made me think about the importance of celebrating our victories in life – big and small – as a part of self-care.

Every day is full of twists and turns. We have good moments and bad moments; and we are constantly on a road moving forward. By moving forward, I mean we are always moving towards something. For example, we are moving towards certain goals in our workplaces,  making progress raising our kids, making improvements in our relationships, making personal life changes, making home improvements, starting businesses, and more. Throughout our everyday lives we endure the ebb and flow of small and big challenges and accomplishments that make up the road of progress in which we are travelling. In order to remain happily and successfully moving forward on this road, I would argue that we need to take a break from moving forward once in a while and celebrate our personal victories - big ones and small ones alike.

Taking time to celebrate personal victories gives us the chance to  recognize how hard we have worked, the good choices we have made, the challenges we have overcome, and the accomplishments we have achieved. Recognizing these various achievements is a key part of self-care because doing so cultivates positive self-identifying emotions. According to https://www.emotionallyresilientliving.com,  “Acknowledging your achievements, even in a small way, increases positive emotions such as self-respect, happiness, and confidence.” Positive self-identifying emotions such as confidence and self-respect are crucial to long-term personal development and overall self-esteem, and therefore it is important to continue to do things to cultivate such emotions – like taking time to celebrate our victories!

So, the next time you get a good grade on that test, you finish that task at work, or your kid finally grasps that topic at school: go ahead, take time to celebrate! Because those victories are important, just like the bigger victories (such as graduating or getting a job promotion). There are many things that facing death through sickness has taught me, and one of them is that every victory counts. Even the smallest victory can lead to the biggest change in the future. Celebrate your victories and celebrate yourself for accomplishing those victories. Don’t be afraid to celebrate YOU; cause let’s face it – you are totally worth celebrating!

~Cheers!
  Carly Morton