Welcome to the August edition of The Inbox Coach. August marks the two-year anniversary of me starting this email series so the only topic I could choose to focus on this month was celebrating your success at work.
I work with a lot of driven people, people who come to me for coaching so that they can grow and develop in their career. I’ve noticed a tendency with most people I coach, and I know I do this myself too, that they focus more on the work still to come, and they don’t make time to celebrate everything they have already achieved.
When was the last time you celebrated an achievement at work?
I’m intrigued as to why people are so reluctant to acknowledge and celebrate their hard work and effort. In coaching sessions, I often have to remind people that before they have come to work with me, they have already done so much, and what we are doing together is continuing that work rather than starting completely from scratch.
We can become so focused on the goal that we forget to give ourselves credit for all the work that we do to get there. Not taking the time to celebrate your achievements can be quite damaging. You can slip into the mindset of “I’ll be happy when …” and fail to enjoy the progress you are making every day. You reach your goals but quickly feel unfulfilled again because you aren’t making time to think about why you wanted to get there in the first place.
The art of celebration
Begin intentional about celebrating things that have gone well is a powerful practice to cultivate. For a start, the whole point of career development is to shift from your current state to some future other position. If you don’t acknowledge when you have got there, and take a moment to understand what that means, what is the point? I love a to do list and the feeling of ticking things off feels good, but what feels even better is to stop and reflect on what achieving your goals now allows you to do. You can enjoy the hard work and effort you have put in and do the things you weren’t able to do before.
When you celebrate your successes, you realise how capable and resilient you are. Whilst we all have some form of privilege, luck and support from others in our successes, if you don’t celebrate what you have achieved you won’t realise the work you have put in.
Reflection
*If you can’t do the exercises from this email now, then don’t forget to pick a time when you are going to do them and add this email to your calendar
Celebrating is a key part of your reflection toolkit and questions that encourage you to think about what you have done well, what you are proud of and how that makes you feel are so important. If you want to feel good at work, you need to know how to spot those positive moments and immerse yourself in them, rather than rushing on to the next task or jumping to the things you would do differently.
If you aren’t doing much celebrating at work, ask yourself…
What am I proud of at work from the last few months?
How did it feel to do those things?
How did I acknowledge those moments?
What have I not taken the time to celebrate recently?
What would embracing celebration in my career development look like?
Action
There are all sorts of ways to celebrate your successes at work. There are some obvious ways we celebrate in our society, such as using food or drink, or making a purchase, which can be a bit problematic, but I think there are other ways to celebrate too. That might look like not dismissing your achievements, telling people you are proud, visually recognising your success, or writing down how you feel with every achievement so you can read back on them and remember how you felt.
Task
Think about how you celebrate at work, the big moments and the small, and identify what this could look like for you. As you go through the week, notice when you celebrate and when you just skip to the next task.
Inspiration
“Other people tend to value you the way you value yourself” - Lee Miller
This week I wanted to revisit a quote from one of my favourite Unconventional Mentors, Lee Miller. Lee Miller had several careers throughout her life, from model to fashion photographer, war correspondent to published cook. I’ve been inspired by how she threw herself into lots of different career paths and did whatever she could to make them work. From what I’ve read and learnt about her, she seemed to be very good at promoting herself and her work to others.
One thing I’ve learnt about promoting myself at work is that no one is as invested in my career development as I am. I don’t need to wait around for someone to notice how good my contribution to a project is, I need to tell them. Recognising this has been a huge shift for me. I’ve gone from seeking approval from my senior managers, to taking ownership of what good looks like for me, both in terms of the work I do but also my development.
Celebrating my successes, big or small, has played a part in me being able to do this. When I’ve celebrated what I’ve done I’ve mentally taken credit for it. By acknowledging to myself that I’ve done work that is worth celebrating, it has given me the confidence to share that with other people.
Celebrating your success and using the insight you gain from doing this is a key part of my Career Clarity Session. In this 1-hour session I help you to understand what career success looks like for you and help you to start an action plan to help you to create a career you love. If you are looking for more support in your career development this is a great way to consolidate your thoughts and get started. You can find out more here.
To celebrate the 2nd birthday of The Inbox Coach, I’m offering 1 reader a free 90-minute career coaching session. All you have to do, is reply to this email by the end of August and tell me how you have used The Inbox Coach as part of your career development. I’ll put the names of all the people who reply into a virtual hat and pick a winner at the end of the month.
I’ll be back next week with more thoughts on how to celebrate your achievements at work
See you then
Laura
P.S. I’ve listed all the previous editions of The Inbox Coach emails on my website which you can find here. Each email has reflection questions and action tasks, so if you need to revisit a topic you can now browse them all in one place
