In yesterday’s post, we talked about the strategy of using your past accomplishments to motivate you in the present. There are other ways to help keep yourself on track and pushing toward your goals, as well. Sometimes we get so focused on making a big transformation that we forget to notice the changes we’re making along the way. Tracking our successes, as we’ve already discussed, can help to motivate us. Taking it a step further and actually celebrating those things can provide us with a bunch of other benefits that help with different aspects of our lives. Improve Your Outlook Celebrations are fun! By attaching a fun activity or special gift to reaching a milestone, you’re teaching yourself to enjoy the journey and not just the destination. A lot of the time we see our goals as a drudgery or something we have to do if we want to be successful. This mindset makes it more difficult to show and reach progress. Developing a success mindset can happen when you make a few tweaks to how you view and focus on the positives. Celebrating small achievements is a great way to do this. When you take measurable steps towards your goal, embrace that success through some sort of fun recognition. Reward yourself with a trip to the movies, a dinner out, or maybe something as simple as an ice cream cone! Anything that acknowledges you progress that resonates with you will do! Feel Good Celebrations, no matter how small,  tend to make us feel good. When we’re happy, neurochemicals such as dopamine in our brains are stimulated. Dopamine is known as a “feel good chemical’, in fact. As these chemicals are produced, our brains want more of them and that leads to looking for more opportunities to get that stimulation. This creates a positive cycle in which we will actually want to continue celebrating the kind of progress that has led us to feel so great! Increase Your Confidence Celebrating your achievements is a way of patting yourself on the back for a job well done. This is especially true when you include others in your activities. You build yourself up and reinforce the fact  that you have the ability to reach your goal. Confidence is a strong motivator. Share the Happiness Not only are celebrations fun, they’re also a good example to others,  Sharing your successes is a great way to spread the happiness around and to inspire family and friends.  Those closest to you will want to share in your success because they’re proud of you and want good things for you. In addition, your success might just spark the desire in them to reach for their own dreams. It’s contagious! Enjoy and celebrate the journey!