The Importance of Patting Yourself on the Back
Do You Celebrate Your Wins?
For about two decades, I walked around my day job telling all my coworkers that I’d know I “made it” when I was 100 percent making a living from my creative work.
At that time, my day job was creative-adjacent. I supported others who made content. On the surface, it was a fantastic setup that gave me financial stability and flexibility, but in other ways it was horrible. Standing next to the folks who do the thing you want to do can hurt your soul.
Today one of my jobs is producing and hosting a podcast called Dear Headspace for the meditation app Headspace. There are so many things that I love about that job from the creativity of the production process to getting to host the show alongside smart AF meditation teachers who give me advice for free, while I make jokes on air. This checks all my buckets or does it tip my buckets over? Whatever that phrase is.
Before a recent recording, my pal and Headspace meditation teacher, Kessonga led us in a quick meditation to get centered before we hit the record button. This is yet another reason I love working on this show. Taking a mindful moment in the middle of a production is as common as a pig suddenly flying by the window. Anyway, Kessonga gave a simple prompt. “Think about your day so far. What happened today? How has it been?”
I closed my eyes and pondered the question. It was 1pm, and I had already taken a walk in the fresh snow, finished writing a story, launched my subtack publication (woo,) and I was about to record my first of two podcast episodes of the day.
I thought to myself, “This is a fucking kickass day.” Realizing my entire day was creative made me smile. That joyful moment was quickly followed by the realization that I had, in fact, achieved my life goal that I’d been working toward for nearly two decades.
I was making a living from my creative work.
Holy shit.
Not only had I not celebrated this milestone, I was moving so fast trying to check off accomplishments that I hadn’t even noticed it happened.
That got me thinking, how do I celebrate myself? I had to think about this a lot. I’m not one to celebrate myself. I tend to put a mental check mark on the completed item and immediately move on to the next task on my always full to-do list. So what in the hell should I do to acknowledge this monumental life event happened?
The answer for me was to take ownership of the win. To claim it. To talk about it. To give myself permission to luxuriate on what a mother freaking journey it’s been and continues to be. I started off as a temp admin assistant, worked to become a producer at a tech company, then took a huge leap of faith, quitting that job so I could bet on myself. I’ve taken creative risks shifting from stand up to a solo show to writing, producing, and performing my own plays to creating a digital short series. I’ve worked for free on student films, background work, and hours and hours of auditions in my living room before moving to commercial work and podcast hosting.
All those tiny moments of work led to where I am today. If I allow myself to admit it, it feels pretty damn nice to acknowledge my progress.
I’m sharing all this for two reasons. One to claim it. That’s right, bish. Okay, that was too much, but I got swept up in the claim. Moving on to my second, and most important reason for this whole rant. I want to ask you these very important questions. What goals have you hit that you haven’t celebrated? What milestones did you achieve that you’ll forever look back on and say to yourself, “Hell yeah. I did that?”
It’s time for you to consider your greatness.
Tell a friend that thing you’re proud you did. Do something nice for yourself. Could be a bath, a dinner, a night on the town. If you’re a person who withholds gifts to yourself, in the words of Donna Meegle and Tom Haverford from Parks and Rec, it’s time for you to, “Treat Yo’Self!”
It’s been a rough few years on this planet. We could all use a moment to reflect on our greatness and celebrate our wins. Let’s start a little self-love-a-thon. Drop that thing you’re proud of in the comments without fear of gloating, without imposter syndrome, without apologies.
Let the pride begin!
PS There’s also an audio version of this essay if you prefer to hear the dulcet tones of Robin reading this. There will also be an audio behind the scenes chat at this topic on Thursday! Subscribe so you don’t miss any of this content!