With no intentional pause, we miss the defining mementos of progress we had worked so hard to attain. While we wait until the very end of the journey to celebrate, we miss the gratification and celebration of key moments of progress in our lives. We even tend to pause and concern ourselves more with the valleys of challenges than we do the progress sustained in the peaks.

Most of us are conditioned to only celebrate at the bigger, planned and more traditional occasions. The ones that industries defined to grow from and Hallmark cards built a business around. National holidays, graduations, weddings and birthdays are not the only time to celebrate moments in our lives.

Celebrate the peaks along the way at the moment you have made a great step of progress. The week you crushed it at work in an effort to one day be promotable. The time you peaked in your weekly workout routine with several personal bests obtained. The moment another reached out to you for support with a task you have obviously began to master at a higher level.

To celebrate amid the flow of life, rather than waited for a planned fun moment conjured up for commercial success, is gratifying and momentum filled. The positive and lasting impact of celebrated moments with others generates great memories of peaks reached along the way. These are what you’ll remember most in the end. The satisfaction and gratification lie in the moments along the way and not only in the culminating tradition of a retirement party at the end, when your staged time is declared over.

“If life, we can work so hard to get the kinks out that we forget to put the peaks in.” — Chip Heath —

MITM