Why You Should Review Your Successes

In the personal development and self help work there is a lot of focus on setting and achieving goals.  If you've read this blog for any length of time you will know that I am a firm believe in this kind of goal setting.  Unfortunately, one thing that is often missing is celebrating goals that have been achieved. We tend to move from one goal to another. If we do celebrate it is for just a short while before moving on to the next goal. It is important to look back from time to time at what you have achieved.
Reviewing your accomplishments does a lot of things for you:

• reminds you of good things in your life
• helps you focus on positive happy things
• gives you belief that you can really accomplish your goals
• forces you to be thankful about where you have come from
• sparks your imagination about future goals
• inspires you to do it again

You can do a review of your accomplishments at anytime.  Here is how:
1.    Pick a period of time to review. One year is a good starting point, but you could also go shorter (try six months), or a little longer (perhaps three years).
2.    Divide your life into important roles or functional areas. (If you follow my weekly goal setting plan you should already have this done).
3.    Think through the MOST IMPORTANT thing you have accomplished in each area during the specified time period.
4.    Think through other accomplishments that you have achieved that you are proud of.
5.    Don't forget to include little things. Sometimes little things to you would be big things to others, plus what is little to you know may have been a big thing at some point in the past.
6.    Look at old goals lists so you don't forget anything.
Once you have done a review make sure you put it somewhere that you can return to it. You want to review your accomplishments from time to time to help you remember the goals that you have achieved.
Lastly, make it an annual tradition. I do an annual review as a part of my New Year goal setting process. You can use my reviews as an example.  Here is my review of 2008 and my review of 2009.
You don't need to wait until a new year to do this exercise. You can do it anytime. The benefits are worth the time. Before you leave this article, schedule a time to do this exercise. Even taking thirty minutes will go a long way.
Written by:
Danny Gamache – The Success Professor