I love celebrating milestones - any and all of them! Weddings, birthdays, half birthdays and anniversaries, which are, if you think about it, really just the birthday of a thing. Our marriage just had its first birthday! We are one (:
I’ve learned, though, that I am not always great at celebrating the smaller things – the weekly or daily wins. I tend to grind on something and then, when I reach my goal, quickly move on to the next one.
What starting a nonprofit has taught me, though, is that you have to take time to celebrate along the way, because you can go for a long time without a win. You can get rejected, fail after taking a big risk and feel like you are getting nowhere for days.
I’m learning that when you have a victory - big or small - you have to take a second to celebrate it. You have to be vulnerable to the honesty of the moment and let the joy wash over you.
During the last six months, I’ve practiced reframing failure. For example, if you reach out to someone for help and they say no, it could be perceived as a failure. But! You could also reframe it as: Wow! I used to be afraid to ask for help for fear of rejection. Today, I was brave enough to ask for help and I didn’t spiral into shame when I was rejected. It’s a win, if you think about it that way.
I was babysitting recently and the little girl fell and skinned her knees. As we bandaged her bloody wounds, she asked me through sniffles: What’s the bright side here, Miss Whitney? I wasn’t sure what she meant and asked her to clarify. My mom says you can always find a bright side to anything. Can you help me find it here? After some discussion, we realized the bright side was that she was having so much fun playing that she ended up with skinned knees.
Reframing failure with a five year old! It’s all about that bright side.
I’m starting to understand that we are more resilient when we practice finding good (even just a tiny bit of it) in our failures and take the time celebrate whatever we can.
When things aren’t going well – when it feels like we can’t win for losing – if we have an entire well of bright sides from which we can pull, we will naturally be more buoyant to life’s trials. As women, I think we often downplay our successes for fear of bragging. But, I promise you, the people that love you want to hear about your wins. They want to celebrate you and all of your goodness!
With that in mind, today I am celebrating wins around here!
I would love, love, love it if you, dear reader, would leave a comment telling me one thing worth celebrating in your life today. Take 30 seconds to celebrate yourself and bring a little bit of light into this world.
I promise, it's not bragging. You are worth celebrating!
Today, here’s what I’m celebrating:
- We didn’t win the KIND Campaign. But! We were selected as a KIND Cause in the first place! Also, more than 500 of you took time to vote! That is amazing.
- Callie Dauler shared The Letter Project on her Insta story and we received more than 80 new Letter Writers because of it. Holy cow!
- Cassie Young, of The Bert Show, wrote for The Letter Project and read it on the radio. We were on the radio in Atlanta, Nashville and Indianapolis. Ah!
- My coffee was amazing this morning. Which is basically my love language, so, basically, I feel really loved today. :)
OK, tell me. What are you celebrating today?
Did you have an awesome dinner last night?
Did you spill your coffee on your shirt but it didn’t even matter because you were prepared enough to keep another one in the backseat?
Did you get into grad school?
Did you finally walk away from the relationship that wasn’t healthy?
Are you accepting your body a little more today than you were yesterday?
Hit me.