Celebrate…

Celebrate Your Victories

“Celebrate your personal victories because no one else understands, what it took to achieve them.”

Nitya Prakash

This week we at Semester had a huge breakthrough. We received some significant financial backing, which is going to massively help us on our journey to provide you with your future Personal Growth and Wellbeing support.  This is a huge personal milestone for our company and we are so excited to share more detail with you in the near future. 

As founders (Joe and Nathan), we have agreed to go out and celebrate this moment! Dining out somewhere nice and having a few drinks to really let the achievement sink in.  We believe that it is essential, in any journey you celebrate your victories. You do not go from start-up business to global leader in a month just the same as you do not go from Fresher to First Class degree in your first week…if only ehh!

This however is the key reason why celebrating your milestones is one of the keys to maintaining motivation and commitment to your ultimate goals. It’s a long road ahead, so why not make it enjoyable?

Whatever your goals are, it is important to recognise that it is all part of a process. A process that takes a lot of hard work and dedication. University for instance can range anywhere between 2 and 5 years and most definitely is not a walk in the park. For me (Nathan) it was like riding a roller coaster without the seat belt on! It is never a straight line, and any goal can be filled with challenges. However, it is essential that we also celebrate the positive steps on the way to achieving our goals and dreams. 

For example, as a student, a long-term goal could be your overall grading, whether this be a 2:2 or to be top of the class. Although poles apart either of these is a supreme achievement and is unique to your own specific circumstances. As noted above, this doesnt happen overnight though…there will be many assignments which you must complete, plenty of presentations and no doubt the dreaded dissertation! Make sure that you take some time to celebrate these milestones as you go.  It is vitally important. Often, we get so fixated on the long-term goal that we fail to celebrate the little milestones too which leads to us thinking that it is just too hard to get there….

On that point, if you ever feel that type of thought pattern creeping into your mind…DO THIS…

1. Negative thought pattern arrives telling you “it’s just too hard, there is so much work to do before I can even get close to my biggest goal”.
2. Immediately stop and think…do not let this thought run away with itself. Take no longer that 5 seconds to acknowledge the feeling and name it* “I am feeling X emotion”.
3. Once you have taken control of the emotion, also take the time to look back and to see how far you have come on your journey to your biggest goal.
4. Finally, now that you have took control of the emotion as well as gave yourself a pat on the back for how far you have already come, you can look at your current situation in a much more positive light and can be motivated to keep moving forward.

*Naming emotions gives us the chance to step back and make choices about what to do with them rather than getting caught up in them and them having control over us. It’s extremely powerful!

When we are personally driven, it can be quick to jump from goal to goal (and this is an admirable trait as we strive to become better). However, it’s great to take a moment sometimes just to recognise how great you are doing.

To avoid this dilemma… as part of the Semester goal setting task we have included a reward element. This includes some space to jot down how you will celebrate your win.  As we wrote in a previous blog, ‘The importance of slowing down…to speed up’  sometimes slowing down can help you move forward and similarly to this, sometimes reflecting on your achievements and little wins on the way can be absolutely vital in ensuring you enjoy the journey.

We absolutely salute you in the pursuit of your goals, and we want to inspire as many of you as we possibly can! But make sure you celebrate those moments to and don’t become a slave to toxic productivity with no reward.

We would love to hear about any of your personal victories in the comments, and as always be sure to share your journey with us! 

#LetsGrowTogether 🎯