Celebrate before your achievement?

Have you ever worked really hard for something, achieved it and felt a bit meh? Moved on to the next thing to achieve without really celebrating your success? 

This is all too common for perfectionists. We are such high achievers that we often are pursuing the next goal post, right away.  Now there is nothing wrong with this per se.  Being a high achiever isn’t a problem.  But if you are finding yourself being driven by perfectionism more than you would like… I want to offer you an alternative celebration strategy. 

So we all know that “it’s about the journey, not the destination” right?  But do we really embody that? Most often not. When we get to the destination, we are off to the next one.  The thing about perfectionism is that if you don’t get to that destination fast enough, easy enough, in a way that “looks” smart, (you fill in the blank), we make ourselves miserable chasing achievement after achievement.  Because they never really satisfy the perfectionist mindset.

The simplest way to get out of the perfectionist mindset is to get into the growth mindset. And the growth mindset is all about the journey.  Here’s what's happening for me right now, and exactly what I’m going to do to celebrate:

Yesterday I completed a 5 month course to up-level my coaching skills, and I’m waiting to get my result… that certificate of completion.  The validation that I achieved the certification.  The certificate in my mailbox! 

 But my partner was really cute, he left me a little bag of candy outside my office door with a “Congrats” note on it.  It was the first thing I saw when I finished my last class.  And it was a huge acknowledgement of the 5 months of focused, committed work I had put in.  It was a “premature” celebration.. But man did it remind me that celebrating myself for the journey (not the outcome) is what keeps us perfectionists motivated. 

 So I’m taking it a step further, and celebrating myself.  Feeling into all that I have put into this, recognizing that effort and persistence.  Being a bit.. indulgent? I know from past experiences that doing this boosts my motivation for the next thing too.  I can move into the pursuit of my next “achievement” driven by healthy beliefs about myself, and less of a need to prove myself. 

 (which also happens to have the side effect of making me more successful at it)

 And next week, when that certificate arrives in the mail, I can celebrate a whole different aspect of the achievement.  If I’ve learned one thing about us perfectionists over the past few years, it’s that celebrating ourselves is so foreign to us, and we need to do it more.  We don’t give ourselves enough credit for what we do, and then expect our brains to be motivated for the next thing (knowing we will dismiss that achievement too).  We make ourselves miserable, make it harder and let perfectionism win. 

 So cheers to you, the journey you are on, the commitment you show up with.  Cheers to me and completing my biggest pursuit of the past few years.  And cheers to us for continuing to move towards a growth mindset.  

 We are stopping perfectionism from ruling our lives (one celebration at a time!).