Celebrating Work Related Achievements

For most people when they achieve something, whether work related or not, however big or small, they tend to turn to others for praise. How often, when you have passed an exam, got a new job, been offered a promotion or clinched that deal have you waited expectantly for your boss or a significant other to say ‘well done!’? Yet, how often do you actually give yourself praise?

Whatever job you may do, you will often be in the spotlight simply because you have a job to do and in some way, that job will be monitored. Whilst it is extremely uplifting to receive praise and recognition for major accomplishments, it may often seem that the small things go unnoticed. Of course, not everyone manages to make work headlines with huge accomplishments whereby company recognition is inevitable and it is the topic of conversation for several months, if not longer.

However, sometimes people have quiet successes that deserve praise as much as any other and they certainly do not have to wait for people to notice because the most important person to impress is always going to be yourself.

So, forget the applause from colleagues and the pats on the back and start to recognise how well you are doing because achievements can be measured in very different ways. For example, you may have a colleague (these examples all apply to yourself too, of course!) who has just made record sales in a month and the company has awarded a special certificate. Everyone is talking about how well they have done and how hard they must have worked, not to mention the money they have made. Then there is another colleague who perhaps struggles with poor mental health yet they turn up for work each and every day and show compassion and kindness to their colleagues whilst striving to do their best in their job. Another colleague may have gone the extra mile in exemplary customer care to ensure a client was satisfied in the way their issue was dealt with. Perhaps another colleague is having to deal with caring for sick family members whilst holding down work or another colleague has finally mastered the art of copying and pasting their first document. All of these are no less of an achievement than the other and each will feel a sense of pride - and rightly so. The level of pride one feels with any accomplishment cannot and should not be measured and never used as a comparison.

Some people simply choose not to make a fuss or to think that others may think of them as showing off so any milestones are kept inwards and of course there's nothing wrong in that as long as you recognise your own worth. Silent and personal achievements can often be far more significant than major milestones and the satisfaction of knowing that you have just learnt or achieved something that makes you proud, can set off a succession of positive experiences.