TheMiddleShelf.com

One of the reasons we often don’t feel successful is we never give ourselves credit.  We tend to downplay our achievement, especially in front of our family and friends.  Before we know it, we’re practically denying we ever attained anything.  But many successful people do revel in their achievements, covering the walls of their offices and homes with their photographs, and magazine covers, displaying awards on their mantels.  They’ve succeeded, and not only does the world applaud them, they congratulate themselves.

I experienced an awakening one day when I was rewriting my resume for a new venture.  As I listed my accomplishments, I wondered “Who is this woman?  Do I know her?  Do I have multiple personalities?” For if detectives arrived at my door to search for her, they wouldn’t have found a shred of physical evidence.  So I started searching for clues, rescuing proof that mountains had been climbed from cardboard boxes buried somewhere in the garage.  I took some of my favorite memorabilia – my college graduation picture, college diploma, professional certifications – to the framers.  When I hung them up in our living room, I stood back and looked at them the way a stranger might.  Wow! It was astounding, exhilarating, stupefying.  Then I began to congratulate myself out loud for jobs well done.  Now I seize moments of achievement by making them concrete.  Having the physical evidence of accomplishment has gone a long way toward making me feel successful.

Although it may crown you Queen for a Day (or King), the world cannot confer the recognition that will make you feel fulfilled.  Only you can.  So chill a bottle of champagne and toast yourself upon the completion of a creative project, personal accomplishment, professional achievement.  Can we really afford to wait for the world’s approval?  “I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work,” Bette Davis confessed in her memoir, The Lonely Life.  “No set goal achieved satisfies.  Success only breeds a new goal.  The golden apple devoured has seeds.  It is endless.”

Photo Credit:  Bruce Berrien CC