Every Tuesday, I have a “Little Chat with Shannon” live stream in the 52 Cues Community. This topic was on my mind recently.

Celebrating the Moment

Dave and I recently launched the Album Accelerator, which was a heavy lift. It was 35 gigs worth of information and six and a half hours of curriculum, so you can imagine the effort it took to put it together.

When we finally finished uploading everything, we were elated! We even promised ourselves we would celebrate by going for a swim (sounds opulent, but we live in Florida, where everyone has a pool). But guess what happened? We didn't go swimming. We just melted into the furniture, exhausted from our hard work. So much for enjoying the moment, right?

This reminded me of a time back in the 2000s when I was the Vice President for Academics at a small private music college in Tennessee. We were a young school and in the process of getting our accreditation, which was a Very Big Deal. I was the head of the steering committee for the self-study we had to do, which turned out to be hundreds of pages long. After submitting it, we waited to hear back from the board. When we finally did, we had to go present to them to defend our readiness for accreditation.

It was a terrifying experience! They grilled us for an hour, questioning everything in the self-study. They questioned our faculty credentials. They questioned our commitment to our own mission statement. I felt like they questioned our sanity! But we made it through, and they granted us accreditation.

After celebrating our success, the President (who was also a friend) and I went to grab dinner. I was ready to bask in the moment! After dinner, he turned to me and said, "Hey, what are you doing tonight?" I was thinking that we might grab a drink, hang out, have some down time. YAAS.

But then he said, "I thought we could get some work done tonight."

I couldn't believe it. We had just accomplished something huge, and he wanted to get back to work right away. This does not qualify as “enjoying the moment!”

All of this to say…it's important to celebrate your successes. Don't let work or other distractions get in the way of savoring the moment. Sometimes us Type A people need a reminder. Let’s do better at appreciating our accomplishments, and reveling in the feeling of success.

Until next time, keep enjoying the moment!

Shannon Kropf