How to celebrate yourself as a woman
What can you celebrate? Everything! Here, life coach Sam Hook shares how important giving ourselves a pat on the back can be to our confidence, productivity and even to our attractiveness. So, come on – let’s celebrate…
When was the last time you celebrated yourself for something you’d done well?
It can often feel more natural to focus on what you haven’t done well in life and how you’ve failed to meet your expectations, rather than to celebrate yourself for the things that have gone right.
Looking for the next goal as soon as you’ve achieved something – like reaching your target weight or getting a promotion – can also mean that you don’t take time to reflect on what you’ve accomplished.
But if you forget to celebrate each success and just push those goal posts out even further, it can lead to even more dissatisfaction and that feeling of never quite being where you need to be.
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO CELEBRATE OUR ACHIEVEMENTS?
We’re often taught when we’re growing up that we shouldn’t brag: no-one likes a show-off’. Blowing our own trumpet, as it were, can still be seen as a negative trait, especially for women.
Another reason it’s so hard to celebrate ourselves is if we develop a mental habit of looking for what we think we’re not doing well and being self-critical. This energy puts us in a state of lack and scarcity.
With this in mind, below are five reasons why you should celebrate yourself often:
1. It increases your confidence
Confidence is created by your thoughts, so if you’re thinking about yourself in a constantly negative way and you’re focused on what you’re not achieving, it will decrease your confidence.
If you’re someone who struggles with confidence, how often are you celebrating yourself? Chances are, not very much, if at all.
2. You inspire others
When you’re proud of yourself and you share it, you’re honouring yourself and inspiring other people by showing them what is possible.
You’re also giving off a very attractive energy. When you’re in a place of celebration, your energetic frequency is very different than when you’re beating yourself up.
3. It helps you to overcome doubt
You can use celebrating yourself to overcome doubt when you want to try something new.
When you create a goal for yourself and all that doubt comes up from the start, you can simply sit down and write out your achievements to show yourself what you’ve done and what you’re capable of.
4. It helps you to focus on the journey
One of the reasons why people give up on their dreams way too soon is that they’re so focused on the outcome that they’re constantly feeling the lack of not being there yet. The only thing they are doing is making themselves miserable along the way.
As Abraham Hicks says: ‘there is no happy ending to an unhappy journey.’
There’s no upside to making yourself miserable. So, focus on the journey by celebrating yourself along the way.
5. You attract more in your life
When you’re celebrating yourself, you attract more into your life as your energy is flowing towards that which you want to experience more.
There’s an old saying in the personal development world that says: ‘your energy flows where your attention goes’. So, if your attention is going towards denying yourself of feeling proud of yourself, then that’s where all your energy is going, too.
And wherever your energy is going, that’s what is creating your life. So, by celebrating, it’s like stopping the momentum of your energy moving in a negative direction and starting it flowing towards what you want to experience more of.
When you celebrate yourself, you’re telling the universe that you’re ready for more – and you start attracting more things to celebrate.
SO, HOW CAN WE CELEBRATE OURSELVES BETTER?
If you’d like to celebrate yourself more, here are a few ways to do it:
1. Write down your achievements
Firstly, write down all your achievements.
If you’re brain starts saying: ‘well, I haven’t really achieved that much,’ then that’s not true. If you’ve made it to this point in your life, you’ve had accomplishments. Force yourself to come up with at least 25 to begin with.
2. Think how you like to celebrate others
How do you like to celebrate others? This can give you an insight to how you might like to celebrate yourself.
Do you like to take them to dinner? Do you buy them a gift or flowers? Do you tell them how amazing they are?
You may want to ask yourself the opposite of that: how do you enjoy others celebrating you?
3. Celebrate your qualities
Celebrating yourself isn’t always just about accomplishments – it can be celebrating qualities that you love about yourself, too. How loving you are, for example, or how persistent.
These are just some of the ways that you could celebrate yourself for all the small things you do and for already getting this far in life.
The important thing is that you make it a conscious, deliberate practice to celebrate yourself often and make time for it. Recognise every one of your achievements and allow yourself to be a success.
4. Write down 5 things you’re proud of doing every night
Writing five things down that you’re proud of doing gives you a chance to reflect on how well you’ve done that day, even if it’s just doing some homework with the kids or taking the bins out. It’s a practice that gets you celebrating yourself.
5. High-five yourself in the mirror!
Some people like to high-five themselves in the mirror. There’s some scientific evidence that shows this is a great way of celebrating yourself to increase your confidence and happiness. I’ve tried this but I’m not sure I am a high-five kind of person – I’m more thumbs-up – so whatever works for you!
Good luck with celebrating you and remember – when you celebrate life, life celebrates you back!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Hook is a Life Coach based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, who specialises in confidence coaching. She runs a number of programmes and workshops and can be contacted through her website.
Sam is running a Confident You workshop in Newcastle on Saturday 28th May, all about building your self-confidence and celebrating yourself. You can book your place here.
Sam also has a new podcast called Unique Thinking, where she shares her coaching tips and exercises. You can find it on Google, Spotify or Apple podcasts.
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