Celebrate your achievements
On Monday, Italy celebrated Ferragosto, a public holiday celebrated on 15 August, coinciding with the major Catholic feast of the Assumption of Mary. It’s also the summer vacation period around mid-August, which may be a long weekend or most of August.
So, it’s a time of celebration.
Why this week is very important to me?
Well, about 4-5 weeks ago, I decided to finally launch my live the wonderful life blog.
This lifestyle blog is inspired by my quest to livethewonderful.life, hoping to inspire others to do the same. My plan was to start off by sharing my journey as I made the big move from South Africa (my home country) to Rome, on the 23rd of March this year.
This move to Italy was a huge decision I made this year, and my biggest one to date on this quest to live the wonderful life I really wanted. First stop: Rome.
I’d already been in Italy for almost 4 months, so I had quite a bit of catching up to do for this blog! And so, I set my final goal date, for getting my blog 100% up to date, for this week of celebration.
I wanted to celebrate this personal achievement of mine, at the same time as Italy was celebrating their important Ferragosto.
This was a big task… But…
Anything is possible if you plan properly by setting yourself regular small goals leading up to the big one, and, most importantly, you commit to them wholeheartedly, no matter what.
I planned to play catchup, with 10 or so blog posts over the last 4-5 weeks.
I started with my first blog post on the 20th July: Be Brave. From there, posting 1-2 posts a week, I managed to tell my story up to date.
And this week…I have done it!
Now that I’m up to date, I’m able to post current posts once a week.
*Happy Dance*
There were times when I thought I wouldn’t get them done, as I trawled through 4 months of dairy notes and folders of images. But, even though it took a lot of time and commitment, I discovered something else…
I found myself thoroughly enjoying writing.
I’d been hesitant to write online, procrastinating for quite some time over this blog. But, by setting myself this tight deadline, with no room for delays, I forced myself to break through the fear of putting my writing out there, and just did it.
The only way to get better, it to practice.
To stop thinking so much, and to just do.
And even though, over these last few weeks of blogging, I’ve thought of all sorts of new ways to refine and improve the content of this blog, the only way to develop and grow was to actually start doing it.
Looking back, it has been so worth it.
And now that I’m up to date, I can celebrate!
This is how I feel:
This weeks post is simply to remind myself and you to always celebrate your achievements, big and small.
We work so hard, and often, when we reach ours goals, we immediately set ourselves new ones.
Very rarely do we stop for even a moment, pat ourselves on the back, and celebrate our achievements.
Think about the goals you are currently working on, or ones you’ve recently accomplished, and set aside some time to celebrate your achievements.
You could treat yourself in many ways, big or small.
You could spend a day or evening doing something self-indulgent instead of working, like an evening of takeaways and your favourite series. You could meet friends for an amazing dinner at a new restaurant. You could buy yourself something lovely. You could simply choose to spend a day outdoors enjoying the fresh air.
However you want to celebrate, do it.
One of the ways I celebrate recently, is going on weekend scooter day trips to the seaside, which you may of read about in my last post Do What You Love.
I look at these beach trips as days I spend celebrating all I’ve achieved during the week. I acknowledge everything, big and small, that I’ve accomplished, and I enjoy my day that much more with this in mind.
This past Sunday I celebrated finally getting my codice fiscale (oh yes, if you read my Never Give Up blog post you’ll remember how difficult a task this has been), as well as getting a great job for a supercool startup.
So it had been a busy, but a good week!
Above: Finally getting my codice fiscale; getting a great job at a supercool startup; celebrating by going to the beach for the day on Sunday – happy scooter ride 🙂
No matter how big or small your goals, when you conquer them, celebrate them.
If you missed some of my last 9 x Blog Posts, here they are, from the beginning:
Be Brave > Embrace Change > Keep Exploring > Go on a Roadtrip > Know what’s important to you > Never Give Up > Have some Funtime > Find a way
Ciao for now, see you next week 🙂
