One of my clients and I were talking a few weeks ago and I noticed that she had a tendency to equate her successes with luck. If the got something she worked for, she was lucky. If she failed at something, it was her fault.

So in the case of the positive outcome, it wasn’t her doing (it was “luck”) and thus she didn’t really celebrate or pat herself in the back. But in the negative outcome case, it was all her, so she beat herself up and felt bad and small, etc.

When I pointed out this imbalance to her, she was surprised because she hadn’t even noticed she was doing it.

I think it’s important to pay attention to the subtle ways in which we create these skewed perspectives. I’ve seen so many people, especially women, diminish the credit and exaggerate the blame. I am not encouraging bragging or taking undeserved credit, but I do want to point out that success does not automatically equal luck.

If you believe luck played a part in your success then you also have to believe lack of luck played a part in the failure. I strongly encouraged her to really look at the success, was it really all luck? Did you play any part in it?

My bet is you did.

And if you did, it’s really important that you take the time to celebrate. For most of us, we tend to remember the bad stuff easily but we have a harder time with the good stuff. This celebrating allows you to lock in the good stuff into longer term memory.

Which comes in handy when the tougher stuff happens.

This is why I made a point of having celebration parties as a family last year. Each week, each of us, have at least one thing to celebrate. Some weeks it’s something small and other weeks it’s a major accomplishment. But there’s always something. And I am a firm believer that celebrating success is as important (if not more important) as learning from your mistakes.

Not very many things are an outcome of pure luck and as the saying goes: “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.”

So make a point to go out and celebrate your successes this week!