Why is it so challenging to celebrate our business success?
Celebrating my business success, whether it’s small or big wins, has never been easy for me. And as a business coach for female entrepreneurs I also notice my clients struggle with celebrating their business success.
++ Why women in particular struggle to truly celebrate business success,
++ Two very important reasons why we most definitely need to celebrate our wins (ALL THE TIME!),
++ And I also share my own recent business success, how I struggled to acknowledge my success and then how I flipped all of this and celebrated my business success in style!
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Hi hi, I am Ainslie Young – the host of the Feminine Business School podcast. If you’re new here, welcome! And if you are a returning listener your presence is so very much appreciated!
Ok so what are we going to talk about today? Today I wanted to share something personal in terms of something I recently grappled with and it’s something I see my clients and peers struggle with too.
And this challenge is celebrating our business successes and wins!!
So in today’s episode we are going to look at:
++ Why women in particular struggle to truly celebrate business success,
++ Two very important reasons why we most definitely need to celebrate our wins,
++ And I also share my own recent business success, how I struggled to acknowledge my success and then how I flipped all of this and celebrated my business success in style.
I know I’m not alone when it comes to finding it difficult to celebrate both small and big wins in my business.
Whenever any of my clients have a win (which is often by the way) I always ask “and how do you plan to celebrate?” And if they are newer clients, they’ll say something like “Oh I didn’t even think of celebrating!”
And I think this leads nicely into the first reason why I feel we, women-identifying folk find it hard to celebrate and that’s because we are so attuned to the linear path to success…..that everything is on an upward trajectory and once we achieve one thing we just need to keep plugging away to tick off the next goal, the next milestone….and it just becomes relentless…..we are just continually striving because the expectation is to be, do and have more constantly.
I’m curious if this resonates?
We just don’t take the time to rest and reflect….because if we actually stop, we may miss out on something or the momentum may stop.
The second reason why I feel it’s often so difficult for women to celebrate their successes in business is because we’ve been socialized to be seen and not heard from such a young age. And we think ‘who are we to celebrate our brilliance or to have others celebrate us’….we struggle to take up space and be recognized. We don’t feel worthy of being in the limelight. Imposter Syndrome kicks in and we start to believe it’s just a fluke that we achieved xyz.
And the third reason I believe we struggle to celebrate our business success is what we call in Australia ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome.” So according to the Oxford Dictionary – Australian version Tall Poppy Syndrome is a perceived tendency to discredit or disparage those who have achieved notable wealth or prominence in public life. And I feel it goes deeper than wealth or prominence – it’s a cultural phenomenon of people who are jealous directly attacking those who are perceived to be better than the norm…..in Australia we love nothing better (especially in the media) to cut down the tall poppy.
And for women this level of being visible doesn’t feel safe to many – we’re fearful of being judged, persecuted, called out, shamed, vilified….and in order to keep us females small and to take up as little space as possible we’re taught to be “humble” around our successes.
Now I don’t know if you’ve looked up what humble means in the dictionary? But I am telling you now I don’t even plan to be humble about my success!
Humble actually means having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s importance.
I don’t know about you, but I am important and my work is important and my business success is of importance……and so is yours!
And this is a beautiful Segway into sharing why we MUST as female business owners acknowledge and celebrate our business successes.
First off, we must take the time and energy to reflect on our wins and successes and anchor them into our bodies. We need to recognise and accept that this level of success is our new normal….and that we are worthy of all the accolades, money, praise etc that is flowing towards us.
We must have the capacity to receive our successes.
Now for me personally – this is something that I have to continually work on. I have found that when I have hit a goal or a financial milestone in my business it would take me by surprise and I’d have to do a lot of work around receiving my success and allowing it to be real….if that makes sense?
I remember last year when I had my first $10K USD month I was sitting at the bus stop using the calculator on my phone and I kept thinking I had made a mistake! But I took the time to anchor this new normal and expectation into my body….and then in June I had a $30+K month and I was in shock again…..so I took the time to calibrate my body to ‘this is the new normal’ and that I am so worthy of this success…and I am worthy to celebrate it!
And the thing is, if you can’t celebrate your first $100 or $1000 in business, you do not have the capacity to celebrate your first 5 or 6 figure month or 7 figure year….you need to celebrate as you go and expand your ability to receive, anchor the wins and celebrate.
And the other major, major reason why you MUST continually celebrate your business successes is because it activates others! We need to share our successes publicly….why? Because others what a piece of this….they want to be a part of this energy!
I know that we have a fear that if we shine really bright then I’m taking light away from others….BUT when you are shining brightly and sharing your wins openly you’re giving permission for others to turn up their light. And we really need more women supporting and celebrating other women…and men celebrating women too.
And you can also trigger others to realise that they aren’t shining at all – and then this gives them the opportunity to do something about it!
Now I know I struggled with the idea of taking away from others and I had to really make myself share my recent wins – more publicly (just an aside, I actually share my wins weekly with a peer who is also a feminine embodiment coach….you can listen to episode about how we do this powerful peer coaching and how we support each other).
Anyways, I also made a point of sharing my wins over and over to my husband, I shared with my family, my coaching peers, my clients, my friends who are not entrepreneurs….and do you know what, they were all super happy for me and loved celebrating me….and my wins inspired them to go after their desires.
Celebrating yourself really is incredible leadership and self-leadership!!
And so you may be wondering how did I actually celebrate myself….well I really chose pleasurable pursuits to celebrate myself…..I booked in for a really beautiful spa treatment and then I took to Xanthe to Raffles Hotel here in Singapore for High Tea (which wasn’t that pleasurable…as she ate everything in 20 mins and as soon as the food was gone she wanted to go home)…and then that evening I gathered around the pool with 2 of my friends and we ate lovely food and drank champagne and laughed and laughed ….and also my company bought me a really beautiful Persian Rug that I had wanted for a while…..and all of this celebration felt very rich, and nourishing and expansive.
And it makes me look forward to the next business success that I will celebrate.
Ok, so just to recap – we covered the 3 reasons why women identifying folk find it so hard to celebrate our business successes, I shared the 2 main reasons why me must continually celebrate our successes in business and I shared my own personal challenges around celebration and how I’ve switched this for taking up space, claiming my successes and sharing them publicly.
And if you’d like to join a high level coaching and mentoring container where successes are acknowledged and celebrated ALL.THE.TIME by supportive and inspiring women, then you need to join the Feminine Business Mastermind.
The women in this container are phenomenal – and we don’t just celebrate masculine metrics like revenue…we celebrate having 4 day working weeks, saying ‘no’, taking up space and honouring our worth, helping our clients have amazing breakthroughs….it’s all worth celebrating….because the more we celebrate the more we open ourselves to receive and the more we grow!
If this is of interest to you, just reach out to me – DM me on instagram @ainslieyoung or send me an email and I can send you some more information about this incredible coaching container!
