In the first post, I tried to reiterate that YOU deserve to celebrate your greatestand smallest achievements, even if all by yourself. In this post, I want to address why this is of such high importance and how you can be more aware to do it.
We all are familiar with the negativity bias, a psychological phenomenon where we pay more attention to and give more weight to the negative rather than the positive. This is natural, but I’m hoping that after reading this post you can become more aware of it as it happens and fight the urge to focus on your wrongs instead of your rights- even the smallest of rights that I mentioned in the previous post. Why? Because this can help you increase your quality of life, accept and understand your own reality, and reach yourgreatest potential.
You need to learn to strike a balance between acknowledging what you can be better at and celebrating all you do well. The good, the achievements, the baby steps- celebrate them! If you can cheer yourself on and pat yourself on your own back then you are more likely to feel more satisfied with yourself which will help you to keep moving forward.
Only you live in your own reality. Only you know the work it took, the rationalizing, the effort, the fight to not give up to get something or do something. Only you know how much you went out of our way to fulfill a small promise. Only you know the willpower it took to do something that may seem small to the next person, but is something you struggle with. You lived through it, and it’s your reality to know and truly understand how you got from point A to point B, no matter how small the distance. Be proud of yourself, and more importantly, CELEBRATE IT.
You don’t need a bandwagon before you can jump up and down for yourself. You don’t need a certain amount of likes on Facebook, or retweets or acknowledgements from the next person. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed to celebrate what you have achieved…and I can’t stress enough that it doesn’t matter how small. After all, the big things will get validation- the promotion, the world changing idea, the passing of state exams. It’s the small things I want you to never overlook again.
The baby steps are what will take you to your greatest distances. Don’t squander your potential, no matter how slowly you are moving towards it, because you are waiting for validation from others.
Be proud and celebrate,
S.K.
