There are enough “new year, new me” mentalities fluttering around in the air and this is not one of them. Most times New Year’s resolutions are like ill-equipped paper planes that shoot out gracefully only to crash head-first a few seconds later.
Instead of looking ahead, let’s take a second to celebrate all our efforts from the past 365 days. Celebrate the unexpected achievements, spurts of growth, extraordinary successes, crash and burn attempts, spectacular failures, splendid mistakes — all of it.
“How do you celebrate your efforts?” My friend Ahmad asked me over a Zoom call. The call came back in July while I was perched on my 7th-story Paris apartment windowsill (dangerously close to the edge) overlooking the Eiffel Tower. I held the phone closer to my face. “Do you mean how I celebrate my wins or failures?” I replied.
We all hear the trendy buzz about patting ourselves on the back for our successes. We also get bombarded with influencer types reminding us to celebrate our failures. I thought that’s what Ahmad was asking. I wasn’t yet aware of a mysterious third space.
“No, how do you celebrate your efforts?” He reiterated through the camera from his home in Montreal. “Your attempts at stuff.”
This is why good friends are important. They ask you challenging questions that make you contemplate your existence and then they rope you into doing something (most likely challenging) to try and squeeze some growth out of yourself.
Ahmad is one of those friends and he has proved it over and over (and we’ve never even met in person).
This particular day he had called me to pitch a challenge (as Ahmad usually does). Per usual, this pitch ended with me succumbing to his (much appreciated) peer pressure.
It wasn’t just me he called. Ahmad wrangled up a group of 5 of us willing victims to his devious plan. The challenge went like this: Every day for a week we had to submit a one-minute video of ourselves explaining how we celebrated our effort that day.
It sounded doable to me, but what I didn’t expect was how much this exercise tectonically shifted my perspective. It’s since become a secret fuel that helps make sure my paper plane stays in the air longer.
The “Celebrate Your Efforts” challenge lived in a WhatsApp group. Each of us is responsible for three things: recording our daily video, watching everyone else’s, and responding with an emoji.
Sure sometimes my videos were done at 11 pm right before bed and were sloppy. Other times I was so tired from the day that I just sent a picture with a caption. But something was stirring the subconscious as the days went on.
The things I was celebrating started to change. At first, my efforts were tangible. “Celebrating my effort to take a 4th cold shower this week.” Or “playing piano after a 5-year hiatus.”
The next evolution brought things like “I went on a run today! I hadn’t run in a month.” Where I noticed things that were normal in other seasons of my life, suddenly became worthy of celebration.
The final phase of our challenge brought different perspectives. “I’m celebrating my effort today to do nothing!” At this point, I had been traveling non-stop for a while and it required a tremendous effort to just chill. So relaxing and giving myself permission to not sight-see or explore, was worthy of celebration.
Perhaps even more eye-opening was seeing my friend’s videos. Windows into their lives and values. Never before had I seen my friends on video tired recording a video at midnight. Or overwhelmed with joy celebrating a small effort.
Ahmad, while super sick one day. Celebrated his efforts to recover and let go of the thought of feeling shameful for not being productive. Estrella celebrated her effort at going on a 1KM run in the hot Philippines after not having run for months and Trent celebrated his attempts at home decor, and Richard celebrated teaching his first university course.
During the challenge, Trent and Richard came up with ideas to help us keep the “celebrate your efforts” challenge alive beyond our 7 days. Trent suggested a “celebrations cork board” where you stick up messages people give you (cards, notes, printed email screenshots, notes to yourself, etc) and put them in a visual place. Richard’s is similar but is digital so he made a “celebrations folder” on his computer where he keeps emails people write him or notes he receives.
This challenge is something we can easily incorporate into our lives and rope our friends into it too. You’ll be surprised at just how much effort we each put into every day. My wish is for us to more conscientiously celebrate our efforts each day, no matter how small. Over a year, they all add up beautifully.
(PS: our friend group since grew and we are in the middle of another challenge. This time for 30 days. Subscribe to read the story of a new challenge over the next month.