Focus on your successes not comparative failures

- Often, when we see others succeeding where we haven't yet, we fall into the trap of feeling like a failure by comparison. It turns out that when we don't feel like we are enough in comparison to others, it's because we haven't internalized our own successes and accomplishments. We haven't fully acknowledged what we ourselves have achieved. Humans need rites of passage. Celebrations are rites of passage that help us to recognize that something important has happened. We need to direct a laser-like focus towards acknowledging and basking in our own successes. When we're busy celebrating our own efforts, we won't have the mental bandwidth or inclination to compare ourselves with others. One of the things I recommend for you to do is to do a retrospective and to revisit your successes. And then once you've identified them, celebrate them. Here's how to do it. Step one, take a success inventory. You may be so in the habit of barely taking heat of your successes as they rush past you and then you forget them almost as quickly as you achieved them. First, get in touch with both your small and large successes so that you can celebrate both. Go back into your calendar and look at the paste one to five years. For each month or year, try to remember, what did you initiate or complete? What abilities and knowledge did you develop or acquire? What challenges and obstacles did you overcome? What are you the most proud of? Don't worry if you can't remember everything perfectly. The goal is to bring to mind as many successes as you can. Now you know what to reward yourself for, it's time to actually treat yourself. So step two is to reward and celebrate. How will you celebrate? The choices are endless. Here are some tips for you. Buy yourself a present. Treat yourself to something that you love. I suggest choosing an object over an experience. Looking at it and/or using this object will be a constant reminder of both your hard work and your acknowledgement of your efforts and success. You can also hold a retroactive celebration. You don't have to limit yourself to celebrating things that happened recently. Just because your success was 10 years ago doesn't mean that you can't finally give it its due and celebrate it now. Besides, people love parties and celebrations. You colleagues and friends will be happy for the excuse to come together and to support you. Put together a potluck or a barbecue. Host a dinner party or a gathering at a fancy restaurant or go bigger and hold a more formal party. Whatever you do, make sure you bring in people who are important to you to share in celebrating you and your accomplishments. And then finally, there's achiever's choice. How would you most like to honor yourself? Choose whatever resonates the most with you and then commit to it. Choose a day and a time and schedule it on your calendar so that it has as much importance as everything else that you block out time for. Regardless of the method that you choose, I almost guarantee that you will feel better when you acknowledge your accomplishment. You deserve it. Plus, with all of this celebrating going on, who has time to bother thinking about what others have done?