Celebration!

The Golden Throne Award

I made the leap from “Sketchnote Videos” to “Claymation Flim” in my new STEM with Cog video, Let’s Find Out: How to Clean Wastewater. Seemed like that deserved a celebration, so we had a “Movie Premiere” for the cast and crew at my house. On a 2 ft x 3 ft red carpet, we handed out “Golden Throne Awards,” as well as certificates of excellence. It was so much fun. Why don’t we stop to celebrate more often?

Experts will tell you that praise causes your body to produce dopamine, the feel-good hormone. But there are more reasons to celebrate, like increasing optimism and self-confidence. Celebrations also force you to take a break from the work and breathe.

Diane's earrings

There are lots of different ways to celebrate. An author friend of mine, Diane Mittler commissioned this pair of earrings when she signed the contract for her first picture book. They were made by Navajo (Diné) artist Alex Sanchez. The symbols represent children, life, and life cycles. “Honestly," she says, "it makes me feel very proud and choked up every time I wear them or even think about them.” That’s a wonderful  celebration.

I love this book Laurel wrote!

Another author friend, Laurel Goodluck, is a big advocate for celebration rituals that mark the end of her creation phase and the beginning of her sharing-with-the-world phase. For each new picture book, she opens the first box of books from her publisher with her 85-year-old mom, so they can release the books together. Because her mom used to cut out pictures of Laurel’s sons and paste them into their picture books, this ritual includes three generations of “seeing ourselves in modern books.” What a great celebration.

But we don’t need to wait for big achievements to celebrate. We can create small rituals or celebrations for those small milestones: revising chapter 12 of the manuscript, writing 1000 words today. Celebrating the small stuff acknowledges we are inching toward our goal. What a great way to feel good about ourselves and our work.