It’s important to celebrate your wins in life, big and small. It’s an important way to get the support, encouragement and motivation you need to keep going. It’s a virtuous circle: the positive emotions you get from celebrating yourself can be contagious, giving other women the idea and ability to do the same. But celebrating ourselves isn’t something that always comes naturally to women. We either think we’re too busy or we’ve been conditioned to believe celebrating is the same as boasting. For the book I’m currently working on, I’d love for you to share your insights about celebrating in the comments (I may follow up with you individually to learn more!):
Do you typically celebrate your successes and achievements?
If so, how? Examples please of celebrations, with others or on your own!
If not, why? Do you have regrets about not celebrating yourself?
And please let me know if there’s something you want us all to celebrate with the Playing with Fire community!
Hello! New subscriber. I am 27 and I work in Technology (despite having an English BA with minors in Linguistics and Mandarin). I am currently trying to build the ability to celebrate wins, let alone feel I deserve them. My role is often filled by women, and it tends to be considered a "support roll for people who actually deliver". I recently got a raise because I asked for it - I was being paid less than the 25th percentile in my city for my role, and much less than average. Despite being trained, having spent several years learning the ins and outs of the role, I cried and felt guilty when I got the raise I asked for. My partner, a man, and one of my good friends who is also a man really lifted me up and encouraged me to feel I deserved it. I still waver in how I feel.
I have had a couple of negative working relationships with women, and some really good ones, but none with actual mentorship. I think if I felt allied with a woman and I saw her succeed in my space more, I would feel better and more likely to celebrate wins.
I celebrated making it through a challenging period in my professional life. In short, I was asked to take a retention bonus in exchange for seeing an important project through to completion, train my replacement, then collect my bonus and exit the organization I'd been a part of for over five years through periods of ups and downs personally and in the business. Although the incentive pay made it easier, it was still a difficult situation to deal with. I decided in advance that I was going to celebrate getting to the end of that journey by picking up the most expensive bottle of champagne I'd ever bought, and saving it for the finish line of that assignment. The outsized reward to myself, even though just an expensive bottle of champagne, still somehow felt special and gave me something to look forward to once I got to the finish line.
I'm really terrible at celebrating myself. It tends to be other people in my life that encourage me to celebrate. My husband and my best friends have taken me out for dinner (or even ice cream!) when I've hit certain milestones and it feels amazing to celebrate, so I don't know why I don't do it more often. There have been a lot of past successes I wish I had celebrated instead of just moving onto the next goal.
Hello! New subscriber. I am 27 and I work in Technology (despite having an English BA with minors in Linguistics and Mandarin). I am currently trying to build the ability to celebrate wins, let alone feel I deserve them. My role is often filled by women, and it tends to be considered a "support roll for people who actually deliver". I recently got a raise because I asked for it - I was being paid less than the 25th percentile in my city for my role, and much less than average. Despite being trained, having spent several years learning the ins and outs of the role, I cried and felt guilty when I got the raise I asked for. My partner, a man, and one of my good friends who is also a man really lifted me up and encouraged me to feel I deserved it. I still waver in how I feel.
I have had a couple of negative working relationships with women, and some really good ones, but none with actual mentorship. I think if I felt allied with a woman and I saw her succeed in my space more, I would feel better and more likely to celebrate wins.
I celebrated making it through a challenging period in my professional life. In short, I was asked to take a retention bonus in exchange for seeing an important project through to completion, train my replacement, then collect my bonus and exit the organization I'd been a part of for over five years through periods of ups and downs personally and in the business. Although the incentive pay made it easier, it was still a difficult situation to deal with. I decided in advance that I was going to celebrate getting to the end of that journey by picking up the most expensive bottle of champagne I'd ever bought, and saving it for the finish line of that assignment. The outsized reward to myself, even though just an expensive bottle of champagne, still somehow felt special and gave me something to look forward to once I got to the finish line.
An expensive bottle of champagne sounds like the perfect way to celebrate. Congratulations!
I'm really terrible at celebrating myself. It tends to be other people in my life that encourage me to celebrate. My husband and my best friends have taken me out for dinner (or even ice cream!) when I've hit certain milestones and it feels amazing to celebrate, so I don't know why I don't do it more often. There have been a lot of past successes I wish I had celebrated instead of just moving onto the next goal.