Everon had its annual meeting and celebration this weekend in Boston - it was a great time; our best party yet!

It reminded me of a very important lesson I learned recently: Don’t forget to celebrate your victories.

I take personal development and goal setting pretty seriously.  I really believe in going for it in life, and I think that in order to really do that you have to actively seek out the experiences you want, and you have to grow as much as possible as a person.  I drive my company in the same way - always expecting people to raise their expectations and do more for themselves and for the company.

I realized recently, however, that I have been taking the process of goal setting too seriously.

What I mean, is that I was no longer having fun with the process.  You see, I think that in order for your brain to really get the full benefit of setting and achieving goals, it has to feel the reward of doing so.  The brain responds to and learns from pleasurable and painful experiences; if you don’t allow yourself to feel the pleasure of hitting your goals, then your brain doesn’t really learn that you are having success.

That’s where I was until recently.

Goals had become work.  Each goal was just something I had to get done on the way to the next goal, not something to really celebrate and enjoy.  By approaching it this way, I was robbing myself of the good stuff in life!

Goal setting should be an exercise of imagination and passion, and your “stretch” goals should be something that excite you so much that the thought of achieving them gives you butterflies.  And when you hit them, or even come close to hitting them, you need to reward yourself by celebrating and enjoying the moment!

MRC