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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being A Virtual Assistant. I’m your host Tiffany Parson and you’re watching and listening to Episode #204. Today I got on my sparkly sleeves because we’re talking about Celebrating Yourselves: Celebrating Your Accomplishments. Let’s dive in!
A few episodes back, I talked about how I am working on celebrating myself. And so I’ve been trying to figure out: where did this come from?, this whole thing of not celebrating until I get to a certain point. And then, if I don’t get to that point, I put off celebrating because I’m not quite there yet/I want it to be a little more like this and a little more like that, and not celebrating. So I don’t want to be general. So let me be specific because I am coming off of episode 203 and I talked about visualizing your goals and being there and then, operating from that place.
So let’s talk about your goal. Think about one of the goals that you set for yourself. So you set this business goal for yourself. Let’s say you set your goal of (you want five new clients in February)–we’ll do it like that. Five new clients in February: that’s your goal. And so February comes and you get the first client, and the second client, and a third client, and the fourth client and maybe the fifth client does not come until March. So at the end of February, you’re feeling like “mm I didn’t hit five. So I’m gonna wait. We haven’t reached the goal yet. I’m gonna wait before I celebrate until we get to the five.” And then March comes but you’re so busy in March, you get more clients, then more come–you surpass that fifth one that you’re wanting, but you don’t celebrate it because now it’s a new month. That was old new–It’s easy to put off something.
Let me frame it this way. This might paint a picture that a good bit of you can relate to, I know I can, Weight loss. So you set a goal for yourself to lose 10lbs. “I want to lose 10lbs. Um, you know, I got a few more months left before 2022. When I step on the scale in 2022, I want to be 10lbs lighter.” Well, when that happens, you get on the scale, you realize it wasn’t 10 lbs; you lost eight. You might give yourself a little pat on the back, but do you really fully celebrate? No, because I didn’t make 10. So I’ll just wait. OR maybe yours is bigger. You’re like, “I’m gonna wait until I lose 50lbs.” Then, “Oh yes! Then we can celebrate.” So on the way to the big goal, we have milestones, right? Maybe with your client projects we know what the goal is. But in between that, we have milestones. That is what we’re not celebrating: the milestones. We’re trying to wait until we arrive to celebrate and not celebrating all along the way. And I’m saying we, and I don’t know, you might not be like this–I’m like this. And this is what I’m working on and learning how to celebrate the small wins/celebrating the milestones because on the way to 50, you had to lose five. On the way to the five clients, you had to get one. On the way to making a five figure month, you had to have a three figure day. A five figure week, you had to have small increments leading up to what your goal is and that needs to get celebrated. It’s not big enough. Why is that? Why are the milestones not big enough? And you know, this episode–you guys are listening to me having a talk with myself–but I know at least one person can relate.
Why do we do this? We don’t celebrate the small increments of it. Not big enough yet. We’re waiting on a big reveal instead of celebrating the small wins. It’s not something that happens subconsciously. You have to consciously celebrate and maybe you have to work backwards. For example, you now have your business goals set. And in the previous episode–I’ll make sure that’s linked as well– in the previous episode we went in detail–being detailed about what the goal is so it’s not so general. And knowing how many projects that takes, how much that takes, how many it is, you know, actually putting numbers to it. And so once you’ve got numbers that you can put to it now, you can kind of rewind. So if the goal is five clients in February, then we can rewind that back, Okay? If I got to have five clients in February, how many people do I need to get in front of to get my five? And then, if I divide that number, how many is that a week that I need to get in front of? and then celebrating that and celebrating the second week and the third week because okay, I got in front of 15 people! Ok, I got in front of another 15 and another 15–whatever, whatever the numbers, I’m just throwing numbers out there, just so you can get an idea of what I mean about having your large goal set and then rewinding it back and celebrating the accomplishments along the way: the increments, the milestones along the way.
If we wait until the big dance, if we wait until our version of our super bowl for our business or our goal. If we wait until then, it’s gonna be too late. And I’m realizing, this is such a great analogy–If you guys have been listening, [if] this is your first time listening to the podcast, thank you so much for listening and thank you so much for watching!–I’m getting really excited because the sports! Let me tell you this: sports is a great analogy. Thank you, Lord! Sports is a great analogy for this because we do this with our–our teams if you’re into sports. So the Panthers–Carolina Panthers uh just signed Cam Newton back: the city is excited! I’m not big into football, but I recognize, um, how we can learn in this analogy. Right? Okay, so: the city is excited that Cam Newton is back. If you have no idea who Cam Newton is or what the Carolina Panthers are, it’s an NFL football team. And Cam Newton was their star quarterback, who um, has–who got dropped or however it worked–traded. Don’t laugh at me if you’re into sports and you’re like, okay, Tiffany. He got traded to some other team and I don’t know how many teams, maybe it’s one or two since he’s been gone. I’m not sure. But anyway, he’s back now. It’s been maybe a year, maybe two. I don’t know, you know, 2020; We lost that whole–I feel like we lost that year. 2020 was a blur. But anyway, he’s back! City’s excited! Okay, so the ultimate goal for any NFL team is the Super Bowl. Right? So now the Panthers are excited because you feel like, okay, we’re in the running/cam is coming back/Cam is with us/we’re in the running. Along the way, they’re gonna celebrate every win leading up to the Super Bowl, every win leading up to the playoffs. That was the word I was looking for right. If it’s a college team they’re gonna celebrate every win. I’m in ACC Country: Go Tarheels! Um they’re gonna celebrate every win leading up to the Sweet 16, leading up to the Final Four, the ACC Tournament, right? They’re gonna celebrate the wins. It’s easy to do with sports, right? Every single week there’s a win, there’s a loss–a winner and a loser, winner and loser right? The ultimate goal is the championship. Our championship is our ultimate goal. Why are we not celebrating those wins along the way? It matters! Even if it’s a game that’s in pre-season, It matters! Why does the pre-season game matter when it doesn’t count towards our ultimate goal? Because it gives us practice. It helps us know where our strengths and our weaknesses are. It helps us to identify a path to continue to move on towards the goal to get us to the championship. That’s why they matter. That’s why we celebrate those wins as well. So if you’re wanting five clients in a month and you only get one client in a month, you celebrate that. And if you’re like me and you gotta, you know, I–I need to write it down. I need to have it written down to see. Okay! The goal is five–I’m writing and talking–the goal is five and these again numbers, I’m just throwing out here as I talk to you off the top of my head. And you get one. Guess what? That’s one closer! One is better than zero. Three is better than one. So you celebrate along the way. Oh it’s just a one off project Tiffany. It’s not a recurring client. Celebrate it anyway! That recurring client is like a game in the off season. It may not count towards your ultimate goal because maybe your goal is to have five recurring clients. But you get this one off project, it’s going to help you refine how you talk to clients, refine how you sell your business, refine how you package things, refine how you price things, refine how you do the work that’s required after you’ve gotten the client, refine your delivery, your communication–everything! How you sell after the fact. How do you get them from project only to recurring? It helps you see where your strengths and weaknesses are because if you’re afraid to ask for the next sale to see what else they need, to let them know what you offer, that lets you know, okay this is an area I have got to be more bolder in. And for my praying business owners, this is an area where you know I need to pray about this. I need to pray because this is an area that you know I’m praying for boldness and courage but I see myself feeling weak here. Lord, I need your help on this. I’m not sure the right wording to say in this email or I’ve got this discovery call and I’m not sure, uh, the right words to say. I remember what happened in the pre-season game, but now I need to do better because this game matters. This one is a recurring project. This is the importance of celebrating our wins. Our wins let us know where we’re doing good at and where we can improve.
I shared a quote, maybe two weeks ago now. It was in my stories on Instagram and the quote was from Peter Jones. He was a guest shark on Shark Tank and he was saying–the quote said “there are no failures, there’s only feedback”. And that’s what we get from our milestones, feedback. If we win, that’s feedback. If we lose, that’s feedback. We get feedback. It’s gonna help us towards the championship. So how can we do better at celebrating ourselves? Writing down your accomplishments every single week. I know it sounds like a lot to sit down and write down accomplishments. So if you can’t think of it in those terms, write down, what did you do this week? Do you ever realize the following week, it’s like, okay, what did I do last week? And you’re not remembering. Keep a daily journal where you’re–um, I’m looking for something–keep a daily journal. Y’all know me, always have paper close by. Keep a daily journal and write down what you did today. So you can see what you did. So at the end of the week, when you have to write down your accomplishments, you can just go through and see, okay, I did this Monday, Tues–Oh! Oh! This is what I accomplished. Because we forget. If you write down everything you did, then you’re not trying to decide if something is good enough to write down or not. That was good to me–That was good right there. Oh, that was good to me. That was for me. That was for me, y’all! Are you a sifter too? Are you sifting through the accomplishments? See how we–we do that same thing. It’s not big enough. My milestone wasn’t big enough. Yes, it was!
Do you know how many people that want to start a business that won’t do it, can’t do it, afraid to do it. And a lot of it goes back to that: care less, more. A lot of why you may be filtering accomplishments, goes back to care less, more. I’ll be sure to tag that episode as well, the care less, more episode. Because if we didn’t care about that stuff, we wouldn’t be filtering. And it may be a comparison thing too like, “mm well it’s not six figures, it’s five figures. But it’s not six. It’s four figures, but it’s not five. It’s three figures, but it’s not four.” You see how we do ourselves? Don’t do that, y’all. Let’s do better! Let’s–us–do better celebrating ourselves/celebrating this: the milestones. When I started to lose weight, I didn’t even notice I was losing weight. My husband would notice he would be like, “oh my gosh, babe, you’re losing weight!” And I’d be like, “I am? I wasn’t keeping track of it like that.”
My focus was, I had to take certain foods out of my diet and my focus was trying to figure out what exactly can I eat now that I have eliminated things. I wasn’t getting on the scale every day. I wasn’t measuring myself. It’s been probably about a year or so since I’ve been on the scale. Have no idea how much I weigh. My clothes tell me, but in the process of losing weight, because the weight loss wasn’t the focus, it was getting healthier from the inside out. But those were little wins. Little wins. I had a dress on a mannequin that used to be in the background for probably about two years waiting to get in that dress. That dress is now too big! But that dress was like a championship and I had to wait two years for the championship. There was not enough little milestones of celebration along the way. I was being all or none. Are you like that? You’re like, “okay, well if I don’t make it to the championship, I’m not celebrating yet because it’s all or none. It’s either all of it–I accomplished all of it, everything, make it to the top–or nothing. We just wait. We don’t celebrate.” No. That day is over, write down every single thing you did today and the next day and the next day, the next day. And at the end of the week, write down your accomplishments. Your accomplishments, because now you’re gonna have it all written down in front of you. Write it again. It might be redundant. But we’re working on being better at celebrating ourselves so this way we know what we’re celebrating. What are you celebrating this week? Don’t wait for the championship you guys. Celebrate the off-season games and the in-season games: celebrate it all!
Thank you so so much. Enjoy time with your family and friends, and don’t work yourself too hard today. If you’re listening to this during the Thanksgiving holiday, if you’re in the US take some time away and relax and come back refreshed, we’ll be back again next week. You have a wonderful and fantastic holiday.
Much love,
Tiffany
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