Why milestones are important (and how one monthly dinner can change the direction of your life)

This month, my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

It's a humbling and pretty cool milestone. Later today, we'll be celebrating them, so I've been thinking about the importance of celebrations.

In a world that is tough and accelerating with change, celebrating on the regular feels more important than ever.

Fifteen years ago, me and some friends started going down the personal development rabbit hole.

One of the seminars we attended talked about how important it is to point and enjoy the good things. Which led us to create one of the most fun things we did for years:

A monthly celebration dinner

To each dinner, we brought a list of wins for that month, and we all joined in to celebrate them. Sometimes they were big career achievements, sometimes they were having managed difficult conversations, sometimes they were a nice pair of new shoes.

The most beautiful result besides a lovely dinner?

We all started looking for wins in our every day life.

What is the win I want to share next time? What is the story I want to be able to tell? Celebrating together was powerful: We started creating and doing the things in life we wanted to honor. More than once, I powered through on commitments because I wanted to celebrate their completions.

So let's not wait to hit 50 year milestones to create a party.

Let's build celebrations into our everyday life

Do you celebrate regularly? Are you bringing others with you in celebration? If you're working towards targets, do you have plans to properly celebrate once you get there?