Celebrate Your Wins

Are you missing parties and celebrations at the moment? We’re almost out of lockdown here in the UK, but I just celebrated another child’s party quietly and I am ready to CELEBRATE LOUDLY!

In fact, I have a really BIG celebration coming up this summer. If you can believe it (I can’t!) I will be 50 and I plan to be celebrating with friends in Mallorca! Sounds amazing, right? Now I’m not telling you this to make you jealous, but to remind you of how hopeful and exciting celebrations can feel. While parties are usually something that most of us are comfortable celebrating, how about a shout out to the smaller day to day things that lead to the bigger successes in our lives and our businesses?

What’s that? You don’t have time to celebrate those kinds of wins? Well my friend, today I want to share why it’s critical to make time for this because it’s critical to your business success.

I want to explain this with a personal story. It starts when I was 15 and started Weight Watchers for the first time. Honestly, over the last 3 plus decades since then, I’ve tried every diet there out there: Atkins, Cabbage Soup, Weight Watchers, South Beach - you name it. I have tried the 5 and 2, 10 Day Detoxes and Fasting. I remember at one point, during the cabbage soup diet moment, my husband physically kicked me out of bed because he said I stank. He begged me, “please eat something besides cabbage soup!” It may be funny now, but it wasn’t then.

So, I know my way around a diet and I know my way around gaining weight. I also know my way around losing weight, I’ve done that loads of times too. I did it after each of my 4 children. I tell you all this because in the middle of lockdown this last January, it all came to a head. In my family, we have a tradition of going around the table sharing our New Year’s resolutions. I never pick weight goals at this point because I don’t want to set myself up for failure. But this year was different. This year, I stated that my New Year’s resolution was to lose 20 pounds by my birthday this summer (always keep your goals specific!).

One reason I did this was because since Covid hit, my weight has been steadily climbing up. I know I am not alone in this. I actually thought the opposite would happen since I stopped eating out and going on holidays – my two biggest sources of weight again. WRONG. Instead, I had to cook 7000 meals for the six people who were in my house. Constantly cooking meant constantly eating. Then my youngest daughter discovered a love of baking, and she's really good at it – irresistibly so! My weight just skyrocketed until my elasticised trousers were too tight. That is just not a good look.

January was the moment I had enough. I did not want to be 50 and overweight. I didn’t want to pant every time I climbed the stairs. I wanted to look fabulous this summer in Mallorca surrounded by friends, sun and sea. That’s why I made a resolution to lose 20 pounds by July.

If you follow me, then you know that I spend a lot of time exercising. I do a lot of Instagram lives and Facebook lives after I've just worked out, talking about sticking to my goals. Because my health goals are important to me, I keep my steps up, I work out twice a week with my trainer, twice a week doing Pilates. and I'm also back on tennis (now that we're allowed again). I get at least 5000 steps a day, sometimes 12,000 steps a day averaging 50-70,000 steps a week. This commitment combined with a change in mindset towards and quantity of food has resulted in a 14 pound loss so far. Yeah! Now we come to the reason for this story.

I put together some before and after photos to see how far I’ve come. I showed them to my wonderful VA who's known me for a very long time, and she's exclaimed “Oh my God you look so amazing!” Can you guess what I said to that? Did I say thank you? Heck no! I said, “you think so? Really? No, I have so far to go till I hit goal and there's so much more I need to do!”

BOOM! Now we are at the crux of this story.

What is that!? Can you say negative self-talk with me? When we have wins, we need to celebrate them. It is absolutely critical not only to our happiness, but to our business success as well. Let's unpack this a bit more.

It’s so easy to dismiss our accomplishments and achievements. We are always so busy looking toward the next thing. Trying to do more, trying to do better. My friend, I applaud you for this attitude. That perseverance, the drive to strive to do more, to do better is amazing and that's why you're an entrepreneur! That's why you're going to succeed. But, you must stop and celebrate your wins at regular intervals along the way or you won’t get the results you want. Seriously.

Why? First of all, celebrating gives you that hit of dopamine your brain needs to keep you going, to know that you’re doing well. That dopamine is what’s going to motivate you. When times get tough, it’s going to remind you that there's a reason that you do what you do. You know your why and you know what you're passionate about, but sometimes things get hard. Sometimes things don't work. Sometimes you do a launch and you get 0 sales, it happens to all of us. It certainly happened to me and it was crap. Focusing on the negative is not the way forward though. Instead, you need to think “look how far I've come and look how much I've done! So hey, look at me now!”

Going back to my weight loss, that’s exactly what I should have said. I look and feel awesome, and I've dropped 14 pounds! Is that 20? No, but I'm getting there! I'm working on it! I have until July and even if I don't make my exact goal, I feel better, I look better and I am even back in my favourite pair of skinny jeans! That is a win worth celebrating.

I know that none of this easy which is why I am working hard behind the scenes trying to come up with an amazing solution for you. I am working on putting together a membership site where I can work with you more closely and individually to get those results that you want. To teach you the fastest strategies to get those clients, to show you the simplest ways to make more money, and most importantly, to give you accountability and celebrate with you along the way.

You are doing so well right now. Today. Please, I ask you: take a moment to celebrate how far you've come already. I acknowledge and congratulate you! Now it’s your turn to congratulate yourself!

To see the vlog visit: https://www.marinanewington.com/blog/celebrate-your-wins