In life and work, I have learned that the concept of success is different from person to person, yet we focus on others’ definition of success in the name of inspiration. There is nothing wrong in seeking for inspiration. Nonetheless, when we do it, I can’t help but feel we get caught up in what the social media and press deem successful rather than focusing on what we aspire our success to be. And if you forget what motivates you firsthand how can you see you’ve come all this way? How can you realise you reached many steps to be where you are now? Â
It’s nothing new that fashion is glamorous and yet very taxing on its workers. Climbing its ladders requires hard work, and it is so fast-paced that often, people just don’t take any time to rest. I was recently reading the story of Roberta Benteler founder and CEO of now closed luxury online shop Avenue 32 and was appalled to learn that from 2011, launch year of the venture, to its closure in 2017 she did not take any time for herself nor for celebrating each of her business’ achievement. Roberta always dreamt of working in fashion but her parents preferred her studying something more concrete, and that is how she ended up earning a good living while feeling miserable at a finance job in New York. Once she decided to create Avenue 32, rather than rewarding herself because she was doing something incredible – that is building a business from scratch in an industry she has no connection in and no knowledge of – she threw herself into a spiral of work to see her venture succeed. The story struck a chord with me as it feels symptomatic of our generation, the millennials, to rush for success in our professional life while losing ourselves personally.
This race towards success isn’t only the bane of fashion entrepreneurs, but it is also the case for professionals within companies. Working hard and being passionate is a beautiful thing but sometimes the bigger the place, the less your work is recognised. If some managers are good at saying ‘good job’ to who deserves it, most of the time they are also caught up with so much work they forget to say these essential two words.
I am often surprised to see that in a society where success and self-care go hand in hand, few talk about rewarding yourself at each critical step of your career. While we are seeking for others to acknowledge our work and thus letting people define our value, we forget to value ourselves. Because this is what rewarding yourself is: telling yourself you did a great job and as a consequence seeing and knowing your value.
Nonetheless, before being able to pat yourself for your accomplishments, you need to take the time to see them. Working restlessly, it is difficult to step back and look with perspective at what you have done so far. It is never too late to start acting these resolutions using Giada’s 2018 template. The idea of writing an accomplishment journal to replace your gratitude one is an excellent complement to sticking to your 2018 goals. Looking back at your agenda full of your to-do’s is another method to go down the memory lane of your hard work and remember a day you were particularly proud of you. Appraisals are the most straightforward technique to see how far you have come. You don’t need to write it anywhere, the company will remind you and give you a template that will ‘force’ you to look at what you have done so far. It was going through one of my appraisal with my manager at Topshop I realised I created a whole style guide for the French market, was contributing to Topshop’s blog and managed to grow the brand’s French following on social media. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t even have noticed!
Once you can see your accomplishments, reward yourself. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve money. It can be cooking for yourself, taking a long bath, going to that yoga retreat you always wanted to go, taking that staycation etc. There are a plethora of things you can do to reward yourself; the important is it should make you feel good about yourself.
In Sex & The City, my favourite character ever is Samantha because she is unapologetic, does what she loves, says what she wants, and above all, she knows her worth. I remember a particular episode where she coveted a piece of jewellery she wanted to buy for herself after working hard, but her joy to do so was taken away by Smith Jerrod. This episode will forever stay in my mind because her disappointment to receive something she worked so hard for by her boyfriend depicts precisely what rewarding yourself means. If you do a great job, that is great people around you acknowledge it and gift you, but self-acknowledgement is even more precious. You know you did well, you know you deserved to succeed, and no one can take it from you.
Do you reward yourself for your working accomplishment?
