Celebrate!

By: Michael Beiter

Celebration matters. 

I know it seems like "feel-good fluff," but purposefully and regularly looking for success AND recognizing it teaches our brains to value the changes we're making. 

For example:

• I took the dog out every day to get more movement. Yay!

• I increased my vegetable intake to boost my recovery this week. I rock! 

• I caught myself a couple of times when I was coping with stress poorly, and I asked myself how I could approach the situation with a productive stress appraisal. I'm a damned rocket scientist of my mind. 

• Last night, I went to bed ten minutes earlier and turned off the electronics a full hour before lying down. Nice!

That's a lot of celebration and signals to your brain about what to pay attention to. 

Behavior expert BJ Fogg teaches people to make an ABC recipe card. 

A: Anchor moment: After I....(prompt behavior)

B: Behavior: I'll do a tiny behavior...

C: Celebration: Then I'll celebrate by...

I used his recipe to quit chewing my fingernails. My recipe was:

After I feel stressed and bring my hand to my mouth (A), I'll grab a cinnamon toothpick or handful of sunflower seeds (B). Then, I'll celebrate by buying my favorite flavor of seeds or journaling my success (C). 

Dill pickle sunflower seeds are my favorite, and I have weeks of journal entries from 2018, the last time I was a nail-biter.