You Grew! What a Success!
Welcome to June. You are now half way there! Turning the corner on the half way mark for 2016 becomes an unspoken yardstick measuring your achievements and defeats. Are you honoring your promises, resolutions and goals? Successful? Never started? Halfway accomplished but otherwise stuck?
What does success mean to you? Everyone has a different definition. For some, it is all about money. For others, it is all about personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Probably for most people, it is a combination of the two. Success is very personal. It can motivate us toward our dreams or hold us back from accomplishing them. Powerful. Feared. Celebrated. How can something so coveted and recognized also be so intimidating?
It doesn't matter. Yes, I just said it does not matter if you have not achieved your goals. Did a life coach just seriously say that? Yes, I did. That is because you can start from right now, this moment, to measure your own success. 2016 still has another 6 months of life in it! While goals are important to have because we all need a destination to reach, the process of individual wins measured by our own growth is the truest indicator of personal success. Each and every day we all have them. Whether small or large, we have multiple "successful moments." Maybe it is something as mundane as actually rising to the challenge of getting to the gym 3 days a week, or maybe it is something really big like landing that $50,000 client. Big or little, when we recognize and acknowledge the positive moments of each day we accumulate all these many measurements of our own growth. It is these accumulated wins that make the difference between taking forward action on what is next or remaining stagnant and in place. Collectively they produce momentum and energy.
Remember the hand-made growth chart that our moms or grandmothers created on a wall or doorframe in their homes? Maybe you do this with your own kids? You know the ones, created with pencil and a wall as props, and measuring every last ¼ inch of growth of each child? Such excitement each and every time you or a sibling grew! Why? After all, were supposed to be growing and you were never going to be nine feet tall, so why the excitement? Growth measured physically or spiritually signifies change. Movement. Action forward. We celebrate growth!
So let's celebrate your 2016 personal growth from this point forward!
Take Action:
If we can celebrate it, it is real and measurable. The thought process behind the following exercise is that when we allow ourselves to be aware and mindful of what works, we naturally begin to chart our own development. Every wow moment, every yes, every small win becomes a larger victory when it is seen as an accomplishment.
Start building momentum and charting your own growth with a large vase or jar, a Sharpie Marker and some Post It Notes. You are about to create your own personal Success Wall! Every day for a month, beginning today, use the Sharpie Marker to write down on the Post It Notes 3 things that went really well for you that day. 3 successes. Again, they can be winning an award, or they can be indulging in spending the day with your kids at the zoo or the park. If it is something you wanted to do, or something that went well, or something you are proud of, it is a win and it counts toward your own personal fulfillment. Now, find a wall near your computer, in your closet, in your office, or on your refrigerator and start creating your Success Wall! If you repeat a success, you can place a check mark on the note that identified it the first time. At the end of the month you will have up to 90 or more wins...big or small, measured only against your own barometer of success and illustrating your own growth. Take all of these notes and fold them into smaller pieces and place them in a large vase or jar. Then rinse and repeat the same exercise for July, and August, and September, and October, and November, and December.
At the end of December gift yourself a celebration. Go back through each note, every one of your successes for the past 6 months and review them. What story do they tell? Do you see any common denominators? Can you chart your own growth and perhaps connect the dots? How much closer to a goal have you gotten and even more importantly, did the goal itself change? For me, success is measured in what is now different. How did I impact a client's life or audience member's thoughts? Where have I written my own legacy by challenging myself to reach out of my own way, and where have I celebrated all the rich moments that have added up to my today? This does not mean that there were not setbacks or defeats. This does not indicate that all went as planned. Celebrating what went right is simply a yardstick by which I can measure my own growth and a barometer by which to gauge where the next twist and turn is headed. It is goodness gathered!
What's next for you? Take the next 6 months to discover the possibilities that 2016 still offers you! What a success! You grew!
