This will be a short post today because my hubby and I are heading out of town for the weekend in 15 minutes. Before we go, I wanted to encourage you all to find some way to celebrate your wins. This is rather common advice in productivity and academic circles, but it strikes me that it is something we know and not something we do. It isn’t until I see my work through a non-academic person’s eyes sometimes that I realize I even had a win to celebrate. As a woman, I also don’t always share my work (let alone my wins) with others because of the normalization of “modesty” for women. This coupled with the often long, long, long-term nature of so many academic projects means I can go a long way without feeling like I’ve won anything. We absolutely should be looking for the wins AND celebrating them.

Luckily one of my amazing Writing Coven members had the enterprising idea to put a “celebration” row in our goals spreadsheet so we have a place to put “wins” in the column for each meeting. Sometimes we put one another’s wins in there and sometimes we put our wins in for ourselves. It’s just a great reminder every other week to think about all that we’ve done and what we can be proud of.

I also have a paper planner with a “good things that happened” box each week which prompts me to really think about the good things. Not all of them are “wins” in the traditional sense, but they are essential nonetheless to my perception of how each week has gone. Just writing the win down in the little box is a form of celebration. I also usually tell my mother who loves bragging about me (as anyone on LinkedIn can attest to). Another way I like to celebrate wins is updating my C.V. Trust me, I know how nerdy that sounds, but I’m sure I’m in good company.

In keeping with this mantra of celebrating wins, I’m happy to share that my chapter titled “Implementing Faculty Development in Multimodal Composition: A Case Study” has been published in the collection Multimodal Composition: Faculty Development Programs and Institutional Change. I’m going to celebrate by driving to one of my favorite wineries, soaking in the sunshine, petting puppies, and sipping some sparkling wine with my partner.

Do you struggle to locate your wins? How do you celebrate your wins? Do you struggle to locate your wins?

Stay tuned for more posts this year about teaching, research, and academia. Feel free to follow me on Twitter: @litambitions and Instagram: @ecacademic (where I really nerd out about planning). You can also follow this blog (see the email subscribe button on the home page).