Celebrating Accomplishments

I waited all day. you waited all day.. but you left before sunset…and I just wanted to tell you the moment was beautiful. Just wanted to dance to bad music…drive bad cars…watch bad TV…should have stayed for the sunset… if not for me.

Eddie Vedder

I spent the better part of the last four months studying for the GMAT. Going to grad school has always been a bit of dream for me since I graduated college, but it was only this past year when my wife and I finally found a way (and a justification) to make it happen.

Studying for the GMAT is a grueling experience, if you put genuine effort into it. Punching in two to three hours a day over a span of 120 days can really add up and take a toll on anyone. I would even argue that studying is more difficult than the actual exam. In fact, walking into the exam felt like a piece of cake after taking a half dozen full-length practice tests.

The GMAT is unlike many standardized tests because it delivers your results to you immediately following the exam. In some ways, this is disconcerting because how terrible would it feel to be given a poor score after sitting in a chair for four hours? Then again, getting the results right away rids you of the suspense of waiting weeks for the score to be mailed to you. Either way, the score is supposed to be your consolation prize for enduring such a terrible experience. In other words, it’s done and you can go home and relax. Following the test, I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment. Not only was my score higher than any practice exam I took leading up to it, but it was well in the range of what I need to get into grad school. I worked really hard to accomplish something and followed it through successfully until the very end.

If anyone is like me, my tendency is to shove an accomplishment aside and move onto the next project. We all have long lists of things we want (and need) to get done that sometimes we forget to bask in the glory of what we already did. It’s a shame how often we brush past the hard work we put into something for the next task. It’s as if we care more about the journey than the destination.

For that reason, my wife and I decided to celebrate the end of my GMAT era. I certainly put in a lot of time to finish it, but my wife had to put up with my studying and incessant conversations about what I was learning. We both deserved to stop, take a break and relish in the success.

It’s also a reminder that we ought to celebrate more often. It’s easy to celebrate big accomplishments, but when was the last time you celebrated something as small as cleaning the houe or receiving kudos from your boss on a job well done? They may not be life-changing, but they are certainly worth noting.