Harnessing the power of Celebration

Last week we reviewed the power of reflection and how it can help track your accomplishments. If you took advantage of the exercise I mentioned of listing your daily achievements, you can likely see when you took steps (“did the right things”) towards achieving your goals. The key is being aware of your actions which create positive outcomes. Reflection enables you to not only know to when you repeat those actions, but to also celebrate, feel good about where you are, and how you got there.

If you’ve had the opportunity to attend Emerging Leadership training, you’ve heard the following quote from Ken Blanchard, one my favorite authors: “People who feel good about themselves produce good results!”  We often neglect to identify when we do something right; one of the best ways to enable “feeling good” is to catch people in the act of doing something right and providing “One Minute Praising.” It’s not only important catching others doing something right, but also important we catch ourselves doing something right so we can celebrate our own successes. Recently, I have seen more sales reps having great success with one of our new products and claiming they are having some of most fun and fulfillment in their careers!   In essence, they feel good about their accomplishments because they allow themselves to celebrate their successes. I’ve mentioned it before, and it’s worth mentioning again – it’s amazing to observe a reps perception of the product and process transform when results come through from their hard work.  But don’t forget: getting to that point took steps and choices—it wasn’t easy and likely discouraging at times.  Yet, it’s how we celebrate those accomplishments of getting closer to our goals that enable us to not only be happier, but to keep making those right choices.

Those incremental right choices and improvements will compound and benefit you most by keeping them visible, so you can actively see and celebrate them!  Remember, to achieve the compound effect we must start somewhere and progress with baby steps.  Acknowledge those steps no matter how small they are.  Celebrate each successful right choice and be mindful of how good you are at your job!  Trust the process. Nothing breeds success like more success!

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