A Mindful Perspective
Welcome to my podcast! I'm Nick Levesque, and I'm on a mission to help you navigate life's challenges with a mindful perspective. Join me every week as I dive deep into the realms of mindset, spirituality, and personal growth. Drawing from my own experiences, I want to provide you with tools, strategies, insights, and inspiring stories that will help you go from where you are now, to where you want to be.
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Coaching: https://www.nickspiritualcoaching.com/
A Mindful Perspective
Why Celebrating Your Wins Matters More Than You Think
Are You Celebrating Your Wins? (Most People Don’t – Here’s Why You Should!)
Most of us work hard on ourselves, chase goals, and push for growth—but when we accomplish something, we just move on to the next thing. Why don’t we stop to acknowledge our progress? In this video, we’ll explore:
✅ Why it’s so hard to celebrate ourselves
✅ How NOT celebrating impacts your self-worth & motivation
✅ The connection between inner child wounds & self-acknowledgment
✅ Simple ways to start celebrating your wins today
🔹 The Brain Science Behind It
The book Buddha’s Brain explains how our mind is Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones—meaning, we hold onto failures but let good moments slip away. If we don’t intentionally acknowledge our wins, we’ll always feel like we’re not doing enough.
🔹 Inner Child Healing & Self-Worth
If you grew up feeling like your achievements weren’t celebrated or were dismissed, this could be why you struggle to celebrate yourself now. Learning to acknowledge your own progress can heal deep-seated patterns of self-criticism.
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📷 Instagram: @nicklevesque_
🎙️ Podcast: A Mindful Perspective – Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts
🌎 Website: nickspiritualcoaching.com
📩 For coaching inquiries: DM me on Instagram!
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Hello everyone and welcome to A Mindful Perspective. I'm your host, nick Levesque, certified Spiritual Life Coach, and I'm here to share insights into my journey of mindfulness and self-discovery. Each week, we'll explore mindset, spirituality and personal growth to help you navigate life's challenges with practical strategies and inspiring stories. Let's dive in. When was the last time you truly took the time to celebrate yourself and to celebrate your wins? I was recently having this conversation with quite a few people and it made me realize how so many of us don't celebrate ourselves enough and we don't celebrate our wins Okay, not only the outcome of something that we're doing and we're working towards, okay, but also the wins along the way, and this is really what I want to talk about in today's video. Really, more specifically, why don't we celebrate ourselves more and how to go about celebrating ourselves? And I think, for a lot of us, when we think about wins, we think about the bigger wins, right, such as graduations, promotions, weddings, all these different things. Okay, while these are all very big and significant wins and deserve to be celebrated, I think there are also so many other wins that deserve to be celebrated along the way, okay. So, for example, let's say, this morning, you didn't want to work out. Right, you didn't want to get out of it, you didn't want to do your workout, or whatever time of day it was, you did not want to work out. But guess what? You showed up for yourself. You got your workout done and you kept the promise that you made to yourself. Okay, that's a major win.
Speaker 1:What about the breakthrough that you had in your coaching or therapy session that allowed you to give yourself a little bit more compassion and also maybe shifted something, shifted a perspective and allowed you to appreciate yourself, even if it's just a little more OK? And also, what if maybe your biggest win today or this entire week is just making it through the day, because it's been an extremely difficult day or an extremely difficult week? Personal opinion, these are so important and they're equally, if not more, important than the bigger things. Right, because I think sometimes we get so stuck on the end goal or the end result of, maybe, our business goal or our healing journey that we're not taking time to truly take a step back and be like, okay, like, these are all the things that I've been working through, like this, these are all major wins. Right, and again, what is the point of working towards all these goals, whether it's a business or inner healing, as an example. Right, what's the point of working through all this if we're not going to take time to celebrate the wins and the progress along the way? Now, there are so many different reasons as to why we don't celebrate ourselves and I can't cover everything right, but obviously, like we just talked about, sometimes I think we associate or attribute the wins with bigger things, such as, like weddings, promotions, all these things.
Speaker 1:Another thing I found to be true in myself personally which is why I had deleted social media a few years ago for an entire six months was comparison. Right, I think there's a big comparison culture, especially with social media, and I think sometimes social media when you're seeing other people achieve these things and do these things and you know, you see their own, you know their presence online and what they're going through, what they're achieving I think sometimes it can make us feel like our wins aren't big enough to celebrate and even, in fact, it makes us forget entirely about our wins in our own progress. Right, this is something personally I've experienced, and it's like I was so busy on other people that I wasn't even focusing on myself and everything that I was working through was like it was irrelevant because it wasn't the big thing that you know those people were accomplishing. But I was accomplishing so much in my life as well, whether that was through healing or whatever it was right. So I think the comparison culture can really be a factor as to why we don't celebrate ourselves right. It could also be, for example, the self-criticism and perfectionism. Sometimes our inner critic will get in the way. Sometimes we've got these perfectionistic tendencies and we feel like we haven't done enough yet. We feel like we don't deserve that celebration. Yet. There are so many you know different varieties and factors here that can, that can come to play, but these are a few as well, and another one that I think is very important to highlight is that maybe you don't celebrate yourself because you were never celebrated in childhood, right, and what I mean by that?
Speaker 1:Let's give a hypothetical scenario. Okay, let's say as an example little you, okay, you drew a painting. You, okay, you drew a painting, you were so excited, you drew a painting, or you did a drawing or something, right. And then you bring that to your parents, right, and your parent takes that and you are met with rejection or just no, no reaction, right, no enthusiasm whatsoever. The parent looks at the painting or the drawing, they roll their eyes or they just put it to the side yeah, I'll check this later, right, or whatever. So that kind of makes you feel like your wins don't actually matter, okay.
Speaker 1:Or, as an example, it could be also that you bring home a test and you do a 90 and you're so excited about it, and then your parent looks at you and you're like 90. No, no, no, you need to do better. You need to do better, right, like, you need to be better. So, like a child internalizes that like, hey, my wins don't matter and also I'm not good enough, right. And then that can play into love has only certain conditions, and then all these different things, right. So that, I think, is very, very important.
Speaker 1:And then also, what can happen is you start to downplay your achievements, right, because again, what you do doesn't matter. Or what you did doesn't matter, right, so your achievements don't matter, the things that you're working on not really matter, right. And also it could even lead to the fact that you have trouble receiving compliments, and what I mean by that is, let's say, as an example, someone gives you praise, right, they're like, hey, awesome job, good job on that, and you're not used to that, right, you're not used to that. So maybe, as an example, internally you have this internal belief that I am not worthy of praise, right, I'm not worthy to receive this compliment, or even sometimes it can lead you to shrug it off entirely. Right, just play like it. You didn't hear it, or even, something that I've personally done before was literally, just, um, take the conversation and direct it in another way. Completely right, just deflect the conversation, deflect the compliment, take the conversation and just talk about something else. Right, so you're talking about this. They give you a compliment, you redirect the conversation entirely to something else, right? So, again, there's so many things that can stem from this.
Speaker 1:Right, there's so many reasons why we don't celebrate ourselves or we have trouble celebrating ourselves, and in a case like this, obviously it could be some inner child healing that could need to be done here, right, to obviously meet those unmet needs of the inner child. But at the same time, what I'm trying to say here is there's so many different factors, right, but these are just a few things that I really wanted to highlight that I think can play a role into why we don't celebrate ourselves. And I just wanted to share a quick story about how I came personally to that realization a few years ago of how I wasn't celebrating myself, I wasn't celebrating my win or any really positive experience in my life. It actually came from this book called the Buddha's Brain, and this book is basically a mix of neuroscience and spiritual wisdom, right. So it's basically kind of the neuroscience of spiritual wisdom, if you will. Right, it's a really good book, it's a really profound book.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed reading this book and basically it talks also about the brain's negativity bias, right. So obviously, you know our minds, we hold on to more of the failure, the mistakes, all these different things, the criticism, right, we hold on to that more naturally because of that negativity bias. And then the positive experiences we don't really take time to embody and incorporate and truly acknowledge in our lives, right. And there's one quote from this book that really stuck with me and it said that our minds are like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. And when I say Teflon, I actually mean the Teflon pan, meaning it slides right off, right.
Speaker 1:And that's when, you know, when I read that, I truly took a step back and I really kind of analyzed my life and I realized like, wow, I don't take time to really embody and acknowledge the positive things in my life. And I'm not even talking only specifically about goals or, as an example, inner healing here I'm talking about, for example, right, let's say you walk somewhere, okay, and this is something personally, you know, that happened to me. I was walking somewhere and you know, you see a beautiful sunset, right, I would see this beautiful sunset and I'd be like, wow, that's awesome. And then I just kind of moved to the side, right. But why is it that when we think about negative things or all these different things, we latch onto that all day.
Speaker 1:But when something makes us feel so good, right, like a beautiful sunset, or like maybe you see something, you're in a beautiful garden or something, a lot of times it's like, wow, that's so nice, right. And then you just kind of move on to the next thing, but you're not taking a moment to truly embody how that feels for you, right? So, as an example, maybe you, you walk somewhere and you see this beautiful garden bed, right, so you look at this garden bed and you're like, wow, that's awesome. And then you take a moment, like you tune into your body, okay, like, truly, like wow, that makes me feel really good. How am I feeling that? Like, like what, what's coming up for me right now? Right, like, what am I feeling? Right, also, not only what am I feeling, but like where am I feeling that in my body? And truly just taking time to really notice the small things. And to me, that was a really powerful realization, I would say, in my life. And that's when this is kind of what leads me to my wins as well, as I was like, okay, I'm not even taking time to celebrate the small positive moments in my life. There's no way that I'm taking time to truly celebrate myself, celebrate my wins, my progress, all these things, if I can't even embody, you know, a beautiful sunset for five seconds and really tune into how that makes me feel, right. And then I noticed that, as an example, when I got a promotion at work or all these different things, I'd be happy, but I would shrug it off. And I brush it off, right, and there's a lot of reasons for that, which, again, we kind of talked about earlier. But this is what I'm talking about, right, and this is what I'm trying to get at. So this book again, I'm just going to hold it here really quick because it's, it's, I really liked this book. I really liked this book, to be quite honest with you, and yeah, it's I just again it's, it's got little nuggets of wisdom in it and I just really appreciated, kind of the perspective that Dr Rick Hansen gave from this book. So again, if you want to pick it up yourself, please do so. It's a very good book, so yeah. But yeah, I hope you understand the perspective that I'm trying to say here about embodying the positive experiences and truly acknowledging them and not just brushing them off.
Speaker 1:Now, I think that when it comes to celebrating our wins, I think we all know that it's good for us, right. I think, obviously, we all know that it's good for us. But also, I think, if you're having trouble celebrating your wins, I think it's almost like a practice, right, I think it's almost like a practice that you build over time, especially if you've got resistance to it, especially if you've got some deeper wounding kind of like we talked about earlier. Okay, so I think, as you do the inner work and you start practicing this as well, honestly I do think for some of us. It can be a skill that we learn, it's a practice that we kind of embody. But when we celebrate the small wins, your brain actually releases dopamine, which is actually really good. So obviously it makes you feel better and obviously it reinforces that good habit, right. So if you can get that dopamine release not from your phone, but an actual, you know achievement and embodiment of an accomplishment that you have, I think that is so powerful, right. That is so, so, so powerful.
Speaker 1:And also something that's helped me personally is sometimes actually saying it out loud, like literally saying it out loud, saying like, hey, you know, I'm proud of myself for having done that Right. Like I'm truly proud of myself for X, y, z, I'm proud of myself to having received that promotion. I'm proud of myself for having, you know, gone to the gym today, even though I didn't feel like it. I'm proud that I showed up for myself Right. And the reason I say saying that out loud is because sometimes I feel like, um, we times, I feel like we're not used to that right, and it's like, oh, it's kind of weird, but it really isn't.
Speaker 1:Like, honestly, like you know, you can say to a friend, why can't you say to your friend to yourself. I mean right. So, as an example, your friend got a promotion. Like, hey, I'm so proud of you, man. Well, why can't you tell that to yourself? Because obviously you should treat yourself like you treat anybody else, like you treat your best friend. The way you treat your best friend is how you should be treating yourself.
Speaker 1:And I think the other reason why celebrating our wins is so, so critical, okay, is because it helps you build the relationship with yourself, right. It helps you build that self-trust. It helps you understand that, hey, I've done all these different things right, and I've accomplished all these different things and I'm so proud of myself in doing that. And in doing so, you're helping yourself, build yourself up, building your self-esteem, building that relationship with yourself. And this is something, personally, you know, I noticed in my own life when I truly started celebrating myself right, not brushing it off, not just saying, oh nice, you know. On to the next thing, but truly started embodying my wins. Now I just want to share a few tips that have truly helped me put this into practice and actually learn to celebrate and embody my wins, okay. And again, I think this is going to be very different for each individual right, depending on the wins that you have and how you want to do that personally. But I'm just going to share personally and practically how I've been doing that myself.
Speaker 1:So, first and foremost, I think, obviously is to you need to pause and reflect on your wins regularly, right? Especially if it's not something you're used to and there's resistance to it. You need to really pause and track the wins that you, that you're doing, right. So maybe that's at the end of the day and the week. It doesn't really matter how you want to do it, right. So for me personally, what I noticed is that as I was tracking more of my wins, I just started to become automatically conscious of my wins, right. So, as an example, something happens in my day, okay, and I'm like, oh, right, and then that made me feel good. Oh, I would stop for a second, I would tune into that, right. But again, it's like building a muscle, it's like repetition, repetition, right. And then something happens and again it makes you feel good and, okay, pause for a second. Right, that makes me feel really good. Step into that for a moment. Truly embody that for a moment. It doesn't matter what it was. Maybe you received a compliment, maybe someone praised your work as an example and it made you feel really good. Okay, don't brush it off. Don't shrug it off. Take a moment, right. So, again, you can reflect on your wins in many different ways, but I think the more you reflect on your wins, the more you'll start to see more wins in your daily life.
Speaker 1:The second thing that I want to share is really to take the wisdom from the book and is really what we've talked about this entire episode, right, but I wanted to bring it up again. It's to really savor the experiences intentionally, okay. So again, instead of you know you see something beautiful and you just brush it off or walk away, pause, right, 10 to 20 seconds. Embody that, tune into how that makes you feel and stay with how that makes you feel. Right, if your boss gives you praise at work and then you start smiling and you're super happy about it, okay, maybe pause for 10 to 20 seconds. Just embody that. Wow, that's awesome. He was really proud of my work. I'm really proud of myself. You can say it out loud again, like we talked about right. So, again, I just really wanted to share that because I think it's so important. But savor the experience intentionally.
Speaker 1:The third thing that I want to share is to celebrate your wins. How you want to celebrate your wins, right, because I think it's so important. And when I say celebrate your wins, you can also actually do something intentional when you're celebrating that. So, for example, right, let's say, you had an extremely difficult week. Right, it's the end of the week. Lots of stuff happened. You had a very stressful and difficult week for whatever reason. Okay, well, maybe you're like you know what. I'm so proud of myself for making it through this week.
Speaker 1:Let me have, like, a really good self-care day tomorrow. Or maybe you bring yourself out on a solo date. Or maybe you phone a friend and you're like hey, do you want to? You want of thing? Right, there could be so many different things. Maybe after your workout, you know you didn't feel like going this morning and you're like you know what I'm going to go. You go, you're so proud of yourself, so you make yourself your favorite coffee. Or you know you make yourself an awesome protein shake or a big breakfast, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Those are all little wins that you can celebrate, or little ways that you can celebrate your wins. Maybe after your meditation session, you feel awesome and you're like, you know what I want to dive into my you know, the favorite book that I've been reading, or maybe you want to catch up on an episode of your, your favorite TV show, where it doesn't matter what you do. There's so many different ways, but I think just you know, creating that tiny ritual and truly getting into the habit of celebrating these wins is also, I think, how it becomes a habit, right, and you're doing more of the things that you also enjoy, which I think is just a win-win. So, again, really, you know, think about ways that you can actually take time to celebrate your wins. The last thing that I want to share is to please take the time to also share your wins with other people. Make it a habit to celebrate your wins with people who truly support you and want to see you win.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think this is so, so, so important, and I've got a group chat of boys where we're always talking, right, we're constantly sending memes and all these different things, having fun, chatting all the time, but at the same time, we always celebrate each other, right?
Speaker 1:If someone does something, they post it in the chat and we're like nice, we're genuinely excited and happy for them, right, and when I post something right, they're genuinely happy and excited for me, right? I posted many wins myself in the chat and you know it feels awesome to hear from other people that truly genuinely support you and want to see you win, and they celebrate that with you, right? No matter how small the win is. Maybe you just got through, again, a difficult day, maybe you did something that was awesome today, maybe you got a promotion you also share that with other people, right? So I think it's an amazing way to again get into the habit of celebrating wins, right, and I think it's such a powerful feeling to have other people celebrate with you, right?
Speaker 1:So this is really the last thing and what I wanted to end off with, but please make sure to share your wins with other people. So, that being said, that's all I've got for you guys on today's episode. If you did like the episode, please feel free to leave a comment or review. Share it. It really helps bring awareness to what I'm trying to do, which is really kind of you know, spread this podcast on a broader scale to really help people just navigate everyday life challenges. So, again, with that being said, I hope you have a good week and I will catch you guys next week. You.
