February 9, 2026
How you choose to celebrate matters.
The actual act of celebration is instilled in us from our earliest memories.
Birthday, Engagement, Wedding, Anniversary to name a few examples.
But rarely is how we celebrate taken into consideration, especially when it is not something as grand and infrequent as a wedding.
Take for example, if you are an Indiana football fan, the recent College Football National Championship game.
Now, I am all for a huge celebration in the passion of victory but do we ever consider what that celebration might look like for us?
Most people, at least as our mainstream culture shows us, celebrate victory with excessive alcohol and food.
But what if you are a recovering addict and you are also working on reclaiming your health…
Is this form of celebration right?
You see, what I have observed in my own life and also in our modern connected culture, is how we are trained to celebrate has massive implications on every facet of our life.
Most of the time, the celebratory habits we are taught are reinforcing a habit we are attempting to break.
Made a sales goal: lets go drink and eat
Lost all the body weight and hit your goal: lets go have a cheat meal.
Won that competition: let’s go get some cake and ice cream.
Observing this has made me ruminate on the question: has the reward culture interrupted what should be normal daily life?
For example:
Lets say that you have been working hard to reclaim your health, is it really the best idea to go reinforce this goal with a 10,000 calorie cheat meal?
Lets say that you have been training hard for your competition and you win, do you really celebrate with all the habits that would have limited your success during training?
If this pattern is put on repeat, are you ever really free or are you just reinforcing perceived success with the very behavior that got you there in the first place.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for a celebration.
However, my perspective on how I chose to celebrate has completely changed.
What I have learned about myself is that true freedom actually comes from discipline in all areas of life, even when I choose to celebrate.
My rewards have shifted completely.
I also don’t use my celebration as a springboard into the bad habit I am trying to eliminate.
Instead, I have created a 24 hour rule for myself.
I take 24 hours to feel the victory.
Not to fill it with booze and sugar and all the other nonsense.
But to just sit in the success and know that all that hard work paid off.
Then, at the end of 24 hours, I start back on the continual path of the pursuit of excellence.
Remember, how you choose to celebrate definitely matters.
Will you choose to reinforce your victory with more winning OR will you dump your results down the gutter with a disastrous celebration leaving you drained and empty.
The choice is yours.
Celebrate wisely.