Part 3 - Recognition & Reward

Hello again and thank you for coming back.  Over the last 7 days I have been really pleased with the number of people that have taken the time to read my blog, it has been a real pleasure writing it and made even more rewarding knowing that people are actually reading it.


In the last couple of blog updates I have written about wants, desires and focus, this time I want to share with you a little more about my experiences of positive focus and reward systems.  Everyone of us achieves and strives to achieve goals, however how many of us reward ourselves for a job well done?  Not enough is the answer, we are too busy thinking about others or what we need to be doing next.


Notice success: When my focus was on the negative I very rarely took time to celebrate my successes, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy moments of excitement and celebration, I was not a walking black cloud, but my moments of recognition were short lived and insignificant.  I remember feeling fantastic about getting a new job or the buzz of booking a holiday, but I would very quickly replace the excitement with stress and worry.  My euphoria about my new promotion would quickly turn to dread and panic, I would start to doubt my own abilities and question my capacity to fulfil my employers expectation, I expected to fail... I never did, something in me pushed harder to ensure I achieved and never fell short of any expectations, but it was hard work and very unenjoyable.  How could this have been different? Had I have known then, what I know now I could have enjoyed my successes, I could have bathed in my achievements and I could have embraced the feel good feelings.  I was creating my success, I was pushing myself and I had the ability to meet expectations.  I failed to see that the reason I got the jobs was because I was good enough, the reason I travelled to exotic places was because I made it happen, I was successful, I was standing right next to happiness but unfortunately I was looking the wrong way.  For a number of years I felt like a fraud, as if I had somehow managed to blag my way through life and trick others in to believing I was better at things than I really was.  Now I know that the only person I was tricking was me and the reason for this was that my own beliefs regarding my self worth were shockingly low.

Recognising and rewarding achievements:  Its time to put the positive focus back in place and share with you some helpful lessons I have learnt.  In my first post I provided an exercise to recognise achievements and relive some of the feel good feelings, for me this is key to moving forward.  Each and everyone of us achieves all the time, whether this be a successful day at work, clearing a stack of ironing or passing exams, in some way or other we set goals and we achieve them, how many of us take the time to pat ourselves on the back or even provide ourselves with a small (or large) reward, the answer unfortunately is not many, it is my aim to change this!  When a young child learns to ride a bike we praise, we encourage and we reward, when a puppy learns to use the garden to do its business ,we praise and offer rewards, we are great at praising and rewarding others but are we good at praising and rewarding ourselves?  Ask yourself, are you any less deserving? The answer I hope you come up with is NO, you are so worth it, only when you recognise your own importance can you truly be the person you are meant to be, you cannot live your life feeling second best, labelling yourself as unworthy, this does not allow you or others to shine, it does not allow you or others to find the way to happiness, the greatest gift you can give to yourself and others is the gift of happiness (yours and theirs).  It is with this in mind that I encourage you to start thinking about what it is you achieve and how you can start recognising your achievements and rewarding yourself.  If there was only one message I could share with you, it would be that we are all deserving, others are not worth any more than us and we have through our being born earned our place on this planet.

A new way of thinking: The idea of self praise initially made me feel uncomfortable, I felt that this may appear to be arrogant and self-absorbed, this kind of behaviour was alien to me and to be honest at first I thought it was a load of rubbish.  I was on the wrong path at that point in my life and truly believed that I was second rate to others and that their praise of me had to be a hidden form of pity, because of this I was a million miles away from buying in to the idea of praising myself.   Thankfully I was wrong and I am so grateful that I now realise it is important to recognise how good you are, how fantastic you are and how worthwhile your place is on this planet.  It is not only important to recognise it, it is really important to celebrate it.  I had to experience a breakdown caused by post traumatic stress disorder in order to realise that I was selling myself short, I hope that when you read this blog you wont have to reach the depths of self destruction in order to understand your own worth.

Have you ever noticed someone like Madonna or Bill Gates say they were not very good at what they do, have you ever seen them sell themselves short, no, of course not, they celebrate who they are, they talk about how great their business, products or next records are.  They have a strong self-belief and because of this they enrich their lives and the lives of those around them.  Don't worry you don't have to start singing (although this could be fun) or inventing computer software to feel successful, as I said above we are achieving all the time and our achievements are no less significant than those of others.  The trick is to start positively recognising what you do and what you do well, when you tick one of your tasks of a list, recognise it, say well done to yourself, when others praise you for what you do accept it and accept it gracefully, a simple thank you will do.  It is a different way of thinking but it is a way of thinking that will improve your life for the better.

A little me time at Rutland Water

How can you reward yourself?  The first time I heard of self-reward I immediately thought about the expense, how could I justify spending money on myself when I barely had enough to get me by at the time?  My thoughts quickly changed after reading a section of a book called "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron where the writer detailed the need to give yourself some time to do something for you, this could be anything, it need not be expensive, in fact it could be free.  Whilst the book is targeted at creative people (writers, painters etc) it got me thinking about how this rule should be applied to everyone, regardless of what we do, we should all have some form of reward system.  Since taking this on board I do give myself time to reflect on what I have achieved, daily and weekly and where appropriate I add in some rewards, they are simple rewards and mostly free but they do signify my importance on this planet and my own self worth.  I'll give you an example of a self reward, over the last 2 weeks I delivered workshops to over 80 people, they were great fun and really achieved the objectives, I felt very pleased with what I had achieved so I have rewarded myself with a couple of days off work, a bit of me time.  In this time I have enjoyed the sunshine in the garden, taken a walk along the seafront and spent some time with my partner,  none of these things cost me a penny, however they were significant and they do represent my achievement.  Historically I would have moved on to the next project without a second thought, NOT ANY MORE!

Feeling good creates greater happiness:  We are creatures that operate on vibrational frequencies, we are made up of energy and scientists have proven that as our moods shift so do our vibrational frequencies, if we are feeling low, we vibrate at a low energy frequency, if we are feeling good, we have a high energy frequency, the more we create this high vibrational state the better we feel, the better we feel the happier we become and the happier we become the more enriched life we lead.  This higher energy state also effects our physical well being, when we are happier we are less prone to illness, we can fight infections with greater ease and we can even help overcome more serious diseases.  Rewarding yourself and feeling good about what you achieve is a great way of switching your vibrational state up a gear or two, so why not say "well done me"? why not give yourself 30 minutes to lay in the bath with scented candles and some soft lighting? why not give yourself the gift of a couple hours fishing? Again I go back to the question I asked earlier are you any less deserving than others?  I know you know that you are equally deserving because you have taken the time to read to this point and I agree with you, you are worth it, you are a brilliant person and you do deserve to reward yourself.

Smile, laugh and have some fun:  Over the next week make it your aim to reward yourself and have some fun, do something to make you smile, to make you laugh.  In your goal to make yourself a little bit happier you are likely to make others around you happier.  Your positive happy energy is infectious and you will infect others with a feel good feeling...  Make it your goal to fill yourself with a belief of being worthy of your own attention, believe that you are deserving and reward yourself in a manner that honours the person you are.  Being a little selfish can be very selfless, when we are seen to be happy we allow others to be happy around us, when we are seen to be having fun we invite others to join in and have fun too.  Be infectious over the next week but start with you...  


I hope you have enjoyed part 3 of my Enriching Life blog, please leave a comment at bottom, I would love to hear from you.  Thank you and please come back for part 4