Celebrating Wins in Your Business

This November, we’re embracing a theme of Thanks and Reflection in business, starting with today’s episode, “Celebrating Wins in Your Business.” November is known as a month of thanks, building up to the celebration of Thanksgiving at the end of the month. I did a similar series last year focusing on what I was thankful for in my business. I really enjoyed reflecting on personal wins.

So for this month’s podcast theme, we are going to explore why acknowledging achievements, big or small, can build momentum and boost morale. I’ll offer tips on documenting progress and cultivating gratitude. Tune in to explore practical ways to recognize your accomplishments and uplift your journey. Don’t miss this encouraging series designed to help you thrive through gratitude and reflection! Let’s celebrate those wins in your business!

Like last year, I’m going to give you a couple of personal stories. Then I’ll suggest how to document and reflect on the progress you’ve had in your business as well as how to practice gratitude in your business.

Celebrating Wins

Wins help you build momentum and boost morale, especially if  you’ve acquired a team of virtual assistants. It has been important for me to let the team know when good things are happening in our business, Alyssa Avant and Company.

Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, an author or speaker working solo, it’s still important to celebrate the wins that you have. This helps to keep the momentum going in your business and to lift your spirits.

I have had times in my business when I felt really low. I felt like I had no momentum and I often referred to it as, losing my mojo. You know, I just felt like I’d really lost my ability to get things done!

Remember how we talked about goals a couple of months ago? If you set some goals, and create an action plan, you can then celebrate when you actually do them!

That’s one thing that I really like about having a checklist each week for me to work on. I can celebrate the things that I have achieved, and they can be big or small! They don’t have to be huge goals that you’ve reached; rather it could be something as simple as finishing a project.

Noticing Big and Small Wins

For example, I had on my list to finish a team manual for my virtual assistants. I started building a virtual assistant team in July of 2023. Since then I have now added four team members and one intern to the business.

I felt like we needed what I was referring to as a team manual or standard operating procedures for how we do things in the business so that everyone was on the same page. I was excited because after having that on my to-do list for quite a while, I finished the document and sent it off to my team members! Soon we’ll have a team meeting about it. It was a goal achieved – a win for me!

A few months ago, I set a really large income goal. I finally met that income goal for one month back in September! That was a big goal for me and I celebrated!

You’re going to probably think this is silly because it was a small celebration. I celebrated by taking my daughter to a coffee shop in the next town and getting an ice coffee or latte. I don’t frequent coffee shops and that was a small celebration. For me, it was enough. Some people might have to celebrate larger, but I was excited enough about hitting the income goal.

Documenting the Wins

I shared before that I use lists a lot. I use a planner. And I make a list every week of the tasks that I need to do. I try to limit those to a certain number of tasks because there’s only so much you can get done. If you set your expectations too high, then you will likely feel defeated when you don’t meet all the goals that you set for yourself.

My list is divided into three areas: Personal To-Do List, Work To-Do List, and Client Work.

Personal To-Do List

On my Personal To-Do list are things that I do, track, and try to keep up with every week. Then I might have a task that I’m only going to do this specific week.

Not this past week, but the week before, I knew that I needed to get all the documentation together because my son was getting his driver’s license. Crazy amount of paperwork to get that done! For about three weeks, I had it on my Personal To-Do list to gather all those materials. We achieved that little goal!

Work To-Do List

My Work To-Do list is stuff for my busy business, but it is not client work. This is only stuff for my business that I need to get done. For instance, every week I release a podcast episode and send out an email newsletter.

I also have some things that I call touch points for my business that I do. For example, this week I wanted to finish a training. I got halfway through the training and gave myself half-credit there.

Client Work List

The third to-do list I have in my planner is my Client Work. Each day I write down whose projects I’m working on.

In these ways, I can track and document progress in my business. You might have another way. If you’re an author, you might want to reach a certain number of written words a day or a week. Whatever the case may be, to feel like you’ve completed something successfully, track it!

Cultivating Gratitude

One of the things that I try to do is have a gratitude list or gratitude journal. For close to two years, I kept a separate gratitude journal where I wrote several things each day that I was grateful for. The numbers were in the hundreds of things! But I stopped using that and try to do this just in my personal journal.

I journal every day. If you don’t journal, I highly recommend it! I’ve been journaling since I was 14 years old. I turned 44 yesterday, so I have been journaling for 30 years! I have quite a few journals, and yes, I’ve kept them all.

One of the things that I do in my journal is write down my thoughts, what I learned from my Bible study that day, and a Thanksgiving or thankful list. Then I’ll write my prayer list. I know this isn’t business related, but honestly, in my life, my business and my faith mesh. Those two things are one. So this is a part of my daily practice that I do to better myself and my relationship with the Lord.

If you don’t practice gratitude in your business or in your life, I highly recommend that you do, even if you just get a notebook and write down a certain number of things each day that you are grateful for. Celebrating your wins, whether they are big or small, documenting those wins, and cultivating gratitude for the business progress you made will lift your spirits and encourage you to keep going strong!

I hope you will stick around for the rest of the podcast episodes as we celebrate a month of Thanks and Reflection in your business!

Questions? Join the Group!

If you have specific questions about hosting a virtual summit, I’d love to get those because that would help me to make sure that I’m covering everything that you’re interested in knowing during this series on the podcast. You can submit your questions inside The Christian Business Advantage Facebook group. I look forward to seeing you there!