Celebrate

Last year. I hit so many milestones, but the year was rolling by and rolling me behind its sand and storm. I was too bitten to see whatever the milestones were.

I did not celebrate when, amidst the chaos of moving to a new town, I started my internship - a full-time 42 hours/week internship while writing up my thesis and travelling every month to Germany for school obligations. Nor did I, when, despite the already tight schedules, I started applying for jobs and hitting rejections wherever I turned, but still managed to deliver a solid project for my interning organisation, finished my master’s with a distinction and eventually, in spite of the number of rejections, got a job. I didn’t pause, midway, except to breathe, and I did not laugh without a glint of sorrow in my eyes. I also clocked 30, a milestone age. Yet, I was too bitten to celebrate any of the milestones that were only the stuff of dreams 5 years ago. That I made it to adulthood, such gallant age, in good health and with such vigour was not a given.

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But, I never celebrated any of these milestones. Just like the years that went before them, I realised I had never really celebrated anything. Victories had always been battles won.? I knew stepping into a new year I wanted better. So I wrote one word across my goals 'Celebrate'.

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When I used to bake professionally, nothing gave me joy like delivering surprise birthday cakes to people or making one for a friend. But I've never really cared about the same gesture. I run away on my birthdays, take a retreat on Christmas and reduce my life's major wins to journal entries. Even If they were things I've spent five years and more nursing. Michael Hyatt, the author of “Your Best Year Ever" puts the danger of not celebrating this way;? When we skip the celebration, we cheapen our efforts. And we also shortchange our lives and the lives of those closest to us. It felt very instructive, and I am beginning to be very intentional about celebrations.

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If you are like me, you can simply change this practice by adding a reward prompt to your goals so you don't forget. Let's say your goal is to make your first 1 million Naira. You could add a line to that goal saying how you will celebrate when you achieve it. Say something like, Have a dinner at a fancy restaurant downtown.

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For me, the challenge is not that I haven't been doing any of this. I have been travelling. I could feel like I was suffocating and conjure up a travel plan in a week. I dine out at fancy restaurants once in a while, but I do not connect them to any achievements, and I call friends to my home for some good Jollof. They were just moments when I was tired and felt like I needed a break (I dined out the most when I was job-hunting, weird! Don’t do that. You might go broke!).

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As professionals, we do not know how to stop dreaming. Or wishing things were way better. Our minds would never stop manufacturing something new to pursue, a worry to get over. A battle to win.? But perhaps, we could celebrate the victories of success. Of fighting and winning if we so wish to call it that. We could raise a glass to all our victories. It is what I want to do this year. That, beyond falling on my knees and crying tears of relief when I win, talking to myself and Jesus, recounting the wounds and the steps to victory, I could open my small world to something more. To the validation that celebration brings, the sound of music not meant for just my ears.

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We all need validation in our lives. This is what celebration brings. The element of validation that our efforts counted, that in fact we did it, and maybe even as a show of gratitude to the friends and families who saw us through the messy route to success.

I hope you have a great year full of celebrations.