On celebrating accomplishments - ta-da!
“Carnage” was the first essay I wrote when I “began” my memoir in 2013. Writing a book intimidated me, but short essays seemed doable. In 2014, VoiceCatcher Journal published the essay. As part of displaying my art this year, I made a booklet of “Carnage” with this collage as the cover.
I will probably forever need nudges to recognize my accomplishments. I am grateful to my accountability groups and how they prompt me to note what I’ve done since we last met.
In my last post, I referenced Jessie Kwak’s guide, From Chaos to Creativity: Building a Productivity System for Artists and Writers. At the end of Kwak’s book, she discusses the importance of a reward system: “Celebrating your achievements helps keep your momentum up when things are good - and it also gives you the drive to keep going when things are hard. Just think of how great the reward will be!” (p. 187). Since I am even more challenged to celebrate my accomplishments than I am to recognize them, I added a question to my accountability group prep:
What did I accomplish, and how did I celebrate it?
Why celebrating is difficult & important
The difficulty:
We learn that tooting our own horn is bragging, boastful, conceited, arrogant, showing off.
We’re too busy.
We doubt ourselves and/or raise the bar.
We only celebrate major accomplishments.
We’re afraid that our success will turn people off.
We are sensitive to other people’s feelings and minimize our own.
We don’t want more responsibility – success breeds success.
Shelita Winfield Duke unpacks these difficulties in “Why executive women don’t share their wins.” SaDiedrah Harris shares how being a Black woman amplifies the difficulty of celebrating accomplishments.
The importance:
Modest or small accomplishments pave the way to milestones.
Carrots nourish balanced personal ecosystems; sticks don’t. Sticks reinforce the diminishment of your self and accomplishments. Carrots are love.
During celebration, your brain bathes in feel-good chemicals like oxytocin, endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine while lowering stressy cortisol and giving your amygdala a relaxing massage. (Read “Celebration Time” for more details about the effect of celebration on the brain.)
We’re social creatures who benefit from the health and well-being of others, and our personal health and well-being benefit the people and beings around us. (For more: 10 Reasons to celebrate your successes)
Celebration is a demonstration of love for self and others.
My weekly crafty accountability group has a few collaborative projects going. My work on this “moth” was the third of the four of us. I turned it into a mobile and celebrated completing it by watching it move for a week then making a special box to mail it to Cathy. These are Cathy’s pictures.
During one of my accountability group meetings earlier this year, we discussed the difficulty of celebrating and brainstormed ways to mark an occasion (especially in ways that didn’t involve food or beverage). One of my favorite celebrations is a walk in nature. Another is sharing my accomplishments with friends. I’m fortunate that there’s a trail nearby where I live – it makes getting out for a walk easy. Friends are only a text message away. The ease is one less obstacle to celebration.
New Year’s Day 2021. I cleared around the bases of trees infested with climbing ivy. Climbing ivy will die when cut from its ground source. It should be left to die on trees to prevent damaging the bark. Ivy adhesive is way strong, like epoxy.
In late 2020, I decided to remove the ivy growing on a part of the trail where I like to walk. Ivy is invasive in the Pacific northwest, and once it establishes in an area, it’s almost impossible to get rid of. I didn’t know it at the time, but spending time in nature like this was a celebration for finishing a massive editing job on my memoir. And then completing the removal on the north side of the trail was its own accomplishment to celebrate. The next winter, I tackled the south side of the trail, a smaller area. This time, my activity was less a celebration and more play. I loved spending time outdoors, working my body, and interacting with the ivy.
I did a decent job getting rid of the ivy. Little bits still pop up here and there, but it’s mostly gone.
This year at the end of January, I noticed that I hadn’t spent much time out on the trail in recent months. I was a tad gloomy and felt pressed for time – so many things to do and not enough time to do them. I am a pro at asking more of myself than is reasonable. I missed the trail.
My art was freshly up at Joy of Pilates (an accomplishment!), the booklets I made of my essay, “Carnage,” were returning praise from people who read it (another accomplishment!), and a publisher made an offer for my memoir (massive accomplishment!).
The dolls, sofa and background art are all handmade, found-object creations. The “Carnage” booklets are in the foreground - a gift for you, please take one.
My first line of celebration was to share these successes with friends, especially news about the publishing offer. I’d met with my writing group only hours before receiving the news about the publishing offer and had encouraged us to add the question: What did I accomplish, and how did I celebrate it? Good friends that they are, they congratulated me and asked, “How will you celebrate it?”
I didn’t know. I also had two meetings shortly after I received the offer – I needed some space to absorb the news.
Pat sent me a poem (Thank you!) that drew me in with its description of lying on the forest ground and becoming one with the earth – basically allowing my body to decompose. I got excited. The ivy. I would celebrate by putting my hands in the earth.
A celebratory bag of ivy! Read more about my ivy removal project in this essay, “Winter Work.”
On a Saturday with nice weather a few days later, I pulled on my winter gardening gloves and chased after ivy sprouts. Some ran more than 12 inches under the leaf litter. I found long, hefty roots that escaped my first clearing of the south side patch the spring before. I untangled vines from snowberry stems and roots. I loved it. I smiled.
Happy Heidi after spending time with ivy. Ta-da! Celebration.
Two days later, I went out to a fancy dinner with Barney.
I take hot showers.
I nap.
And then there’s chocolate. There’s a difference between celebratory chocolate and my chocolate habit. I do both.
My biggest emotion in receiving a publishing offer was/is excitement.
Plus surprise.
And uncertainty and fear.
I understood why authors seek representation with literary agents. Agents know what to do when a publisher makes an offer. They’re familiar with industry standards and book contracts.
I reached out to my writing mentor, Karen Karbo, whom I met through the Attic Institute, and another published writer, Cami Ostman, who was supportive of my publication journey.
“What do I do?” I asked.
Both said I should have a lawyer look at the contract.
I joined the Author’s Guild, asked ChatGPT for advice, talked to Barney, fretted.
I took small steps into the unknown. Five weeks after I received the offer, I had a signed contract with HCI Books!
To celebrate, I walked the trail by myself. No podcast. No phone call. I welcomed conversation with nature – hummingbirds, mosses, trees, lichen, ivy, bursting osoberry.
I walked to the store for chocolate and came home with a dozen roses. Celebration roses for me – yellow-orange petals rimmed with red.
I am not a pro at celebrating my accomplishments, but I’m practicing. One of the easiest ways I celebrate is sharing with friends. One of my friends has a WINS jar (Go Emma!). She writes her accomplishments on a bit of paper and puts it in the jar. She watches the jar fill with wins and at the end of the year reviews what’s inside.
Another friend shared an article about celebrating accomplishments and unconventional milestones (Thank you, Darlene!). The article emphasizes the journey - how small accomplishments lead to a larger goal or milestone. Recognizing the steps along the way supports greater satisfaction and joy in life. Sign me up!
One way to cultivate this sense of satisfaction and joy is like Emma’s WINS jar – writing a ta-da list at the end of the day to acknowledge the things you did do. A ta-da list can work in conjunction with a to-do list. It will likely reflect things that didn’t make it on a to-do list.
A friend bought one of my artworks that I had up at Joy of Pilates. The money stayed on my desk where I could see it for days after I delivered the art. I felt I needed to do something to mark the exchange. Before I sorted it out, the two of us met for coffee/tea/lunch. She asked me, “So, how did it go, having your art up?” I shared about my writing and the exposure from my “Carnage” booklet. “But you sold a piece of art,” she said. I stopped talking. Yes. I had. She had affirmed me as an artist, and I was so wound up in something else I hadn’t recognized the importance of that affirmation to myself or her. This was a celebration! “You’re so right,” I said. “Thank you! I did. I sold art!”
And, now, ta-da! I found a way to recognize this exchange that helps me see it and celebrate it. (Thank you, Yvette! This was a powerful lesson for me.)
Prompt:
It’s time to celebrate your accomplishments. Sure you can save up for a big splash, but there’s today. How do you shower yourself with love for all the ways you showed up for other people AND yourself (for all you women out there, especially yourself).
Make a list of your accomplishments from the last week or month.
Note how you celebrated these accomplishments (or didn’t).
Share the list with your accountability group or buddy or a close person in your life.
Was it easy to celebrate? Did the celebration feel appropriate to the accomplishment? If you didn’t celebrate, why? If you’re postponing celebration (maybe you have a big something on the calendar that is a celebration of many things), how can you honor yourself and your efforts in the near term with a nourishing reward? If you made your celebration contingent on someone else, how can you reimagine your celebration so you’re able to love on yourself?
Send me a note about what you’re celebrating and how. There’s something magical about sharing accomplishments and basking in the glow with others. Does it change how you feel about yourself? Your satisfaction with life?
Thank you for reading and being one of the people with whom I share my accomplishments! OMG, I wrote this blog post. Ta-da!
I’d love to keep the conversation about creativity and daily practice going. If you haven’t already, please join my email postcard for other support and whimsy.
LOVE
