***Acknowledge And Celebrate Your Success!

Winston Churchill is quoted as saying, "Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." If you are attempting to achieve a big goal, such as weight loss, overcoming depression, or ending an addiction, your journey may often seem like one difficulty after another. The key to achieving success is learning how to maintain your enthusiasm despite the often-challenging journey. Failing to recognize your progress or small steps of positive change can be devastating. If you have not yet learned how to feed yourself with heaping compliments and recognition for having overcome the last challenge, then you will run out of positive motivation when facing your next challenge or obstacle.

The Benefits
If you want to overcome your difficulties, achieve your goals, and live a better life, then recognizing your effort and success is the most powerful strategy you can implement. Yet, often we do not own our successes. We minimize our effort or dismiss our many small successful achievements, postponing feeling good until the final outcome. If you never celebrate your effort, you will soon resent the work required to achieve your goal. In fact, without recognizing and acknowledging your success, you are less likely to achieve or maintain your desired outcome.

What are the benefits of recognizing and acknowledging your successes?

• Builds loyalty to the outcome of your goal or desire
• Increases your positive motivation
• Pumps up inner confidence and develops a hopeful attitude
• Nurtures a growing belief that you can have what you most want
• Reinforces your desired behaviors
• Helps you stay positively focused despite short-term setbacks
• Allows you time to review what got you to where you are now

Written Records of Success
Get used to feeling successful. Don't wait until your final triumph until you allow yourself the feeling you success. Make a practice of celebrating every effort and every success, no matter how small. If you can develop the habit of seeing yourself as capable of achieving success, you are more likely to build on that success the next time you face a challenge. One powerful tool to increase this strength is keeping written records of your positive behaviors, inspired efforts, and successes along the way. Every day, make a list of your successes. Putting them in writing makes them more real. Spend a little time devising a simple plan to document every positive step forward.

How to Measure Success
What constitutes success? Anything that you choose to define and acknowledge as success. It could be effort that you put forth to make a new decision, a sudden realization, a tiny step forward that created movement, or a feeling of confidence. Look in these new directions as you redefine what constitutes success:

1. List the moments of joy along the journey toward your desired outcome.

2. What are you learning about yourself as you face each new obstacle?

3. Are you allowing personal satisfaction from your efforts?

4. Are you growing self-love, self-leadership and accepting self-responsibility along this journey?

5. Are you gaining self-confidence?

6. Are you listening to and trusting your instincts, intuition, gut feelings, and creativity more often?

7. Do you smile and laugh more each day?

Remember: Each small success is another step toward your goal. Celebrate your successes and your positive qualities. As you recognize your successes, you increase your motivation to take the next step of your journey into the better life you deserve and want. So take a moment and acknowledge every single effort that you put into your goal. You'll love yourself for it!