The blog

When was the last time you felt vic­to­ri­ous? When was the last time you active­ly felt very pleased with your­self, in a sin­cere and hon­est way? When did you last look back at what you have accom­plished and felt proud?
Every day we work hard to com­plete the project, to expand our busi­ness-oper­a­tions, to get the job we want, to have the life we want for ourselves.
Our expe­ri­ence tells us that we increase the chances of being suc­cess­ful if we work sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly and with good struc­ture in our work. Some­times it seems easy and some­times we have to exert our­selves above and beyond. How­ev­er, there is a time for intense work and then there is a time for rest as well. You will have the ener­gy to go all the way if you every now and then stop and pause, reflect on what you have accom­plished so far and feel good about your­self for doing so.
Since what are our efforts to improve our struc­ture worth if we nev­er get to enjoy the results, the fruits of our labor? Nothing.

Your dear­est friend

Right now we are in the ear­ly months of spring (here in Swe­den, at least) and for many it will soon be time for some vaca­tion dur­ing the sum­mer — a nat­ur­al break when you can look back with con­tent­ment on what you have achieved.
You are your near­est and dear­est friend, the one you’re always togeth­er with.
Sure­ly you want to be with a friend who some­times moti­vates you when you need to go that extra mile, and some­times relax­es togeth­er with you when things have calmed down? Who wants to spend time with some­one who nev­er is sat­is­fied, but always want more and want to push on and on?

Do this

1. Think back to how you worked six months ago. What are you doing today that you did not do then? What exists today that did not exist then? What is com­plet­ed today that you had not even com­menced then? What is obvi­ous to you today that you had no idea about then?
2. Notice the things you have done to change your work­day, for instance in terms of struc­ture. Do you see that you have had it in a cer­tain way, had an idea, done some­thing con­crete and now things are dif­fer­ent? Isn’t it amaz­ing — with sim­ple means, you can affect your every­day and your life!
3. Enjoy the fact that things are bet­ter now. If there are many things which have not improved, enjoy those things, albeit few, which are actu­al­ly bet­ter now.
4. Feel proud of your­self. See and acknowl­edge how capa­ble you are. Be gen­uine­ly pleased with your­self. Give your­self a pat on the back. Sure, buy a bot­tle of cham­pagne, make an appoint­ment for a SPA-treat­ment or do some­thing else to reward your­self. How­ev­er, what lasts the longest and which is vivid even the day you are sub­ject­ed to dif­fi­cult chal­lenges is sim­ply enjoy­ing what you have accom­plished, that you have crossed the fin­ish line, that you won this race, that you feel pleased and proud.

The next level

Per­haps you take your life as it is today for grant­ed and assume that ​“it just is what it is,” and
that you can­not do much about it. Now when you have made your­self aware of how energetic
and capa­ble you are, imag­ine what changes you would like to do next, when you are done
rest­ing (per­haps in the fall, after the vacation).

“Aren’t we there yet?”

If you make sure to ​“bring home the vic­to­ry” now and then, it will be eas­i­er and eas­i­er to make changes for the bet­ter. It becomes a fun sport which you are good at. You will also feel a greater con­tent­ment since you at reg­u­lar inter­vals ​“arrive at the goal” rather than being stuck in a nev­er-end­ing pro­gress­ing motion, con­stant­ly push­ing on and on and on. You are most cer­tain­ly allowed to go fur­ther, to move on, I am the first to encour­age that, but if you stop for a moment and just enjoy half a day, I assure you, no time is lost.

How do you do it?

What is your way of acknowl­edg­ing your suc­cess­es to yourself? 

Leave a com­ment on how you do it.