2012 Resolution #15: Acknowledge Your Personal Victories
Posted on January 15, 2012 by Maria McInnis, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
#15 in a series on resolutions, today about realizing your achievements and your personal skills
Resolve to acknowledge your personal victories.
Your personal victories are important milestones in your life that have lent you experience, skills and values that have, in turn, molded your very life. Most people take these victories for granted, and never look at them as achievements.
The fact is that your life is filled with failures and victories, good times and bad times, and all of it comes together to make your memories in the past and the present. The issue is that most people skew those memories, and force themselves into depression by acknowledging only the failures. Today, I ask you to look to your victories, and the things that you can be proud about.
“Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered.)” – Julius Caeser
Sometimes we fail in exploring our victories because ‘everyone has done it’ already. This does not make things any less important, nor any less victorious to you. In my Motivation classes in NLP I teach that it is sometimes the victories that ‘everyone’ has that shape our lives the most.
Learning to speak English is one that most people never count. English is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, ask any school kid going through Language Studies. The grammar, homonyms, synonyms and hidden letters make it a treacherous tongue…one which most North Americans have mastered. It is a skill that shapes how we communicate from the moment we begin to understand it.
Everything we learn and master is a victory. Learning to cook, learning to drive, learning anything at all is a victory that can be counted, even if there is someone who you perceive to be better at it than you. The fact that you have the ability to learn these complex things, shows what your brain is capable of. It is capable of achieving great things, and when you begin to acknowledge your personal victories, you will begin to see a map laid out of your skills, your strengths and possibilities for your future.
“All personal achievement starts in the mind of the individual. Your personal achievement starts in your mind.” – W. Clement Stone
The fact that you have achievements means that you are capable, and that you have the capacity to improve the life that you are living. When you focus upon these and your strengths, you will find there is nothing that is beyond your limits. Some people make a list of their achievements and victories, keeping them on hand to dispel the discouraging times, because achieving isn’t always easy.
Like when you learn to ride a bike, chances are that you will fall. There are those who wouldn’t get back up, but those who did gained a skill. They found their balance, they worked the muscles, and they learned to pay attention to their surroundings. Some of us stopped there, content to simply pump at the pedals and go whatever distance we could. Others began marathons. Some took to the most difficult terrain that they could, and still others went on to do tricks, stunts and dangerous feats that gained them attention and injury.
All of these are separate victories which use different skills such as patience, determination, a high pain tolerance and the such, but they all stemmed from the same place, and from the same basic achievement. If all you learned to do was ride, then that is fine. You showed determination, balance, patience and the will to continue past failure. These are the same skills that need to be applied to almost every aspect of life.
The best part of it all is that, like never forgetting how to ride, you never forget how to apply these skills. They are ingrained within you from childhood on, and all you ever have to remember is to stand back up and try again until you achieve what you have set out to do. Acknowledging your personal victories helps to lend you the strength you need in order to move forward.
