If I asked you how you like to celebrate your wins in life, would you have an answer? 🤷‍♀️ Or would you say, "I don't know. I've never thought about it before."? We're taught to celebrate the big milestones in life. The birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries. The firsts and the lasts. But the in-between, everyday wins, successes, and progress? Those aren't the celebrations we see very often.

And if we do, they can be seen as "too much" or "a little excessive".

But what if celebrating the smaller, in-between moments and experiences is actually the thing that makes life more enjoyable?

For the past couple of months, I've been taking a long walk every Wednesday morning with a friend. We have a beautiful cemetery and arboretum in our neighborhood with walking paths and so we walk about 3.5 miles (or about 8,000 steps according to my watch). I'm smiling as I write that because a little over a year ago, I was barely taking 2,500 steps in a day. Now, I'm starting my day with a walk that gets me anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000. Past me would be blown away 🤯 at how much progress I've made.

Do you have a garden that you're getting into this time of year? I come by my love of plants and gardening honestly. My mom has the greenest thumb of anyone I know. Her garden and landscaping at my childhood home are seriously jaw-dropping. It's magical to be there during the summer. But I always used to tease her about the pictures she would take of her landscaping.

Instead of being this thing that felt so hard and so outside my reach, I narrowed my focus to what was within my reach. Some people call them "lead indicators" and the larger goal itself, the "lag goal". I love this concept and have been thinking a lot about that with other goals in my life and the goals that my clients are working toward.

Are you taking "photos" of your life? Are you taking snapshots and notes so that someday in the future you can look back and celebrate how much has changed? How much you've changed and grown? And are you taking the time to dream about what it is that you want to "plant" in your life? Being able to see and celebrate your progress is a skill and it’s not one that most of us are taught. But it’s crucial to feeling good in your life.

Thinking about a goal and taking action toward a goal are two different things. I've had the same goal for myself for the last three years but have very few results to show for it. Why? Because I realized I've been spending my time thinking, researching, and planning instead of DOING.

We're conditioned to want the next thing, to make the next change, or hit the next milestone. But what if you decided that settling in and fine-tuning the life that you have right now IS the next milestone? What if your next phase of growth happens BECAUSE you chose to coast?