Oh yes, celebration is the word of the week, the flavour of the month and the aim of the year.

It’s all too easy for us high-achiever, go get ’em types to be so focused on the next big thing that we completely forget to enjoy the view on this big thing.

So I’m stopping to enjoy the view. I’m reminding myself, each day, of how damn well I’m doing at life. I’m reminding myself of why I rock. I’m reminding myself of how wonderful I am. And you know what?

It’s working. I’m feeling lighter, more joyous, better about myself, and generally more stoked on life.

So this week, just to set this new pattern of behaviour in stone, I’m taking time to write out ten reasons to celebrate the good times right now. And I want to encourage you to do the same.

There’s truly something magical about acknowledging all the things you’re doing well, and how awesome you actually are, and how far you’ve come in life. I’d love to know too what rocks for you—flick me an email, leave me a comment, yell it from the rooftops.

We Kiwis in particular can be downright reticent about how awesome we are. But you know what? We are. Maybe it’s easier for Americans to celebrate, maybe it’s a cultural thing.

Oh—and no matter how awful your life is right now, and how much of a failure you might think you are, there are things you are wildly successful at, even if it’s just coordinating your slippers with your dressing gown.

Trust me, celebration is an attitudinal shift capable of generating a perspective readjustment that can overhaul your life.

There’s always something to celebrate. Find the something.

Here’s my Top Ten Things to Celebrate This Week:

1. It’s my birthday on Friday and I love myself more at age 37 than I ever have before. All of me—mind, body, heart & soul.
2. I interviewed fellow Kiwi Mark Whitwell this week, whose latest book The Promise has been endorsed by Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass. That makes my media work one degree of separation from the top echelon of the industry. One, just one.
3. The Yoga Lunchbox hit 1300 fans on Facebook this week. That’s 1300 people who love what I’m doing with this website. I love them right back.
4. I’m single-handedly raising an awesome child who delights me every day, and I’m rocking it. Good times and the bad. And yeah, there are bad.
5. I’ve written and published over 300 articles in the last four years. Three hundred! At an average of 1000 words. That’s 300,000 words published! There’s three books in there… (Watch this space). That doesn’t count the 100+ speeches I wrote three years ago, also at 1000 words each… that’s another 100,000 quality words! Ministerial quality words! Writing machine, people, writing machine.
6. I’ve started making yoga instructional videos all by myself, and committed to making and publishing one a week. Sure, I’ve got lots to learn and people aren’t rushing to watch them yet. But I’m learning. And I’m doing it. And I’ll only get better. Where will my yoga videos be in a year? Three years? Five years?
7. My relationships with my family members are becoming closer and deeper with every passing year, because I choose to value and work on these relationships, facing the angst that arises, as it arises. Ditto with my friends. I’m learning how to be a better friend.
8. I have successfully worked with and healed myself both of a broken psyche and a broken back, all completely self-motivated and self-directed. It took something like five to eight years for each, but I stayed the course.
9. I have been driving The Yoga Lunchbox now for nearly four years, turning up most every single day to publish articles, constantly looking for ways to make the website better and better for it’s awesome audience, and I’ve been doing it for something like $0.03 /hour Because I love it. Because it’s awesome. Because yoga is awesome. Because my audience is awesome (that’s you too. You’re awesome). Oh, and I’ve decided I’ve been doing such an awesome job that I deserve a raise. At least 1000 percent. No wait. 10,000 percent. Yeah, a 10,000 percent raise!
10. I’m learning to take full responsibility for my emotional state in every moment. I own my feelings, and I look for ways to lighten up and feel the joy rather than seeking external ways to feel better all the time. Oh wow, that sounded serious. But it’s not. Well it is. But it’s also not. Is. Not. You see—there’s always a flipside to every emotional state. Grief and joy are true bed-fellows. I get that now, and I’m loving them both.

That’s my list. For tonight. For this week. How about you? What’s your success right now? Where are you rocking your life? Are you squirming just thinking about it? Thinking it’s arrogant and self-indulgent to shout out yourself? Are you thinking there’s nothing to celebrate and it’s all too hard? That life sucks and so do you?

Well don’t.

Think success.

Dare to call yourself out, on all the things you’re doing well, right now, in this life you’re living.

It’s the only life you’ve got. Might as celebrate it. Because you are extraordinary, just like me.

Editor: Lynn Hasselberger

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