Celebrate Creative Success: Tips for Celebrating Your Milestones

Sometimes climbing towards our goals feels overwhelming because, by the time we reach a milestone, we’re already striving towards the next. The goal post is constantly moving which is great for our constant growth but less great for our ability to recognize how far we’ve come. The more mountains we climb, the more we add to our list but it’s important to celebrate creative success on the summits along the way.

I write about the things I need and this is no exception. In fact, this one is something I’m bad at. I get such bad tunnel vision pursuing the next goal that I blow right past the one I just accomplished.

Slowing down and taking time to celebrate helps me actually enjoy the journey. Taking a moment to be present and feel joy is a reminder of why we’re on this path. Not to mention, if we celebrate creative success it will help battle burnout and be a source of motivation for the future. Ok, I guess I mentioned it!

Enjoy the Journey

What’s the point of all of the sacrifices on the road to success if we don’t enjoy the journey? Because let’s be real, there are sacrifices. Creative pursuits are hard, you put your heart and soul on the line trying to share something of value with the world, and along the way you fail and get knocked down.

We feel every bump and bruise, every hard lesson, but we don’t let ourselves feel the joy of progress, success, or accomplishment. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about that next. We need to enjoy the journey too.

The road toward creative success is unclear and unpaved. By the very nature of the thing, we’re doing something that hasn’t been done, even if we have fellow creative adventures alongside us. We think we want to be at the destination, I personally really want a guarantee that I’ll get there (wherever there is), but what about the journey?

Feel the Joy of Every Success

We might have some definition of what true creative success looks like. It might be a financial number or a certain amount of recognition or perhaps it’s something to do with the impact you hope your work has. But there’s no guarantee that we’ll get there.

And, I bet that we won’t get there if we burnout. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about that next. In the meantime, we need to feel joy along the way.

There’s a joy that comes with a creative success, a pride that arises from taking a vision and making it a reality. Soaking in these joys can fuel more creativity through motivation and encouragement. They can help us be present with where we are and how far we’ve come.

Battle Creative Burnout

Suffering has a purpose I suppose. Some of us like to push ourselves and work hard, using the sweat and tears as motivation to persevere. But at some point, without joy, it’s just not worth it anymore.

If we don’t celebrate creative success, if we don’t take time to acknowledge ourselves, then we won’t have the stamina to continue on. Allowing our minds to focus only on the negative isn’t a path towards resilience. Instead, we need hope and purpose and a reminder that even if there are hard days there are joyful ones too.

Don’t just pursue creative success. Pursue sustainable creative success, repeatable and scalable creative success. Celebrating along the way and enjoying the journey will help us get there by allowing ourselves to be here.

How Will You Celebrate Your Creative Successes

How you celebrate will be up to you, it can be as personal and creative as your own journey happens to be. Set us systems that will help you remember to enjoy the journey and feel the joy along the way. Remind yourself that celebrating the small things will help you battle burnout on the big things.

From there, here are some ideas.

• Who’s someone that’s given you praise? Re-read that praise and celebrate it.
• What’s a positive impact you’ve had? Acknowledge it and share it
• What have you accomplished that you only dreamed of 5 years ago? Nice!

Whether you need to make a timeline of your progress to remind yourself how far you’ve come or re-read some of those old journal entries, make sure you’re celebrating creative success along the way. If you need someone to celebrate with, shoot me an e-mail I would LOVE to remind you of how awesome you are!

About the author: I am Brenda Bergreen, one half of a husband and wife photography team specializing in Colorado wedding photography and videography and adventure photography.

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