When Celebrating Your Big Accomplishments is Hard

I have a problem. My name is Ursula and I have trouble celebrating big accomplishments. Hi Ursula. I’ve been encouraging my clients to celebrate their accomplishments. Every day. Like every coach I’ve ever talked to, I don’t always take my own advice. Sure, I do daily celebrating. Most of the time. But the big accomplishments? Oh wow. Celebrating my own accomplishments stirs up all kinds of feelings in me. Who am I kidding – no one will want to celebrate this. You’re bragging, puffing yourself up too much. It’s not that big a deal. Oof, an avalanche of objections. And resistance. That’s what’s been coming up for me around celebrating the 200^th episode of my Work Alchemy podcast. This isn’t a little thing. This is a whole body of work, developed over almost 5 years, of which I am very proud. 200 interviews. All the back-of-the-house effort that went into researching, preparing questions, interviewing with intense listening and interest in the person. Writing show notes. Plus all the work that my team has done in editing and posting the interviews. Hour upon hour of invested time, energy, and money. A LOT of work. And more importantly, a lot of GOOD, even EXCELLENT work. I’m a really good interviewer. I acknowledge that. I own that. And my guests are really remarkable people whose stories I want to share. They deserve to be heard. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share these stories. I love doing it. And still… My own coach told me a story the other day of a woman who flew to another city to celebrate another woman’s accomplishment. When asked why she would go all that way, she said: “I will travel very far to see another woman celebrate.” Now THAT hit me. I’m not just celebrating for myself, though I know that is more than enough reason. I am ALSO celebrating for every woman, every person out there who feels the way I did. That she’s not enough, that this isn’t a big deal, that she’s not worthy. We don’t necessarily celebrate things that are important to US. It’s ok to celebrate weddings, graduations, birthdays. Those have the cultural rubber stamp of approval. But accomplishments outside of those bounds? That may be tougher. We shrink from celebrating because of what other people may think, and from what we think ourselves. I’m changing all that, for myself, with this celebration. I’m not shrinking from this. I’ve been celebrating the f*#@ out of these 200 episodes. By doing so, I’m expanding MY impact. The 200^th will air June 10, next week if you’re reading this when this blog post goes live. I’m even throwing a virtual party in celebration – you can win one of FIVE really incredible prize packages, to support you in YOUR impact. It so energizes me to share this celebration with you in this way, to support and inspire you in YOUR impact. Even if you missed the contest, you can still celebrate with me – rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. That would please me so much, and help the podcast and these amazing guests get more visibility. Either way, I invite you to celebrate with me, because when we celebrate each other, we celebrate ourselves. Want my support in increasing your income and impact? Send me an email at Ursula@WorkAlchemy.com.