Celebration: The Most Important Part of the Habit-Building Cycle

What habit, if you did it regularly and with repetition, would most impact your relationship?

I’ve been using January to set you up for this kind of success and today’s episode is the best singular element for making and maintaining that habit of your choice.

Want to know what my secret to success is? It’s not reminders on your phone, nor does it involve a planner.

The biggest predictor of how well you maintain a habit is to celebrate any and every success you have. And I define success like this: you adjusted your direction vector. (Did you miss the episode I did a couple weeks ago about planes and vectors? If so, I recommend you pause this episode and listen to the previous 2 weeks because I’m on a roll here.)

When I talk with my clients about celebration they roll their eyes at me. “I’m not a baby who needs a lollipop or a sticker at the doctor’s office, Rebecca,” they tell me. I’m serious about success. I want a REAL habit that will REALLY change my marriage.

And I always say, “I will know how serious you are by how elated you get about your success.”

 

The biology of celebration

Celebrating the tiniest of wins is the absolute best way to create momentum in any habit you want to create.

Do you know why? Because the glue for any habit you want to create is your happiness. Nothing cements a good habit like celebrating. Celebrating tells your system—your brain, body, and soul—this is it! We want more of this!

Because your brain, your body, and your spirit are all wired to bring you the most joy you can possibly tolerate, every time you celebrate it’s like a bouquet of balloons for your brain.

When you notice your success—especially the tiniest and most specific elements of your success—you cement the chances of that happening again with a constellation of gold stars.

Amazon know this. Every time you buy what is it that you see? “Success!” We relax when we know we’ve complete the sale, right? We celebrate that “Success!” moment, knowing a package of goodness is headed our way.

You know this truism if you have a toddler. Any hint of the desired behavior and we cheer! Have you ever been with parents whose baby is learning to walk? That sweet little baby takes a single step and there’s a chorus of cheering.

So, when you roll your eyes at me because I suggest cheering for yourself, I want to scoop you up and cradle you like that little baby and say, “Why should life be different for you than that precious baby you love?”

We tend to think we should be above such pedestrian praise. Why?

 

Believe the habit research

BJ Fogg is a superstar behavior scientist and Stanford University professor. He says in his book, Tiny Habits, “Emotions create habits. When behavior is followed by a feeling of success, the brain rewires and the behavior becomes more automatic.”

James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits and he’s famous for the idea of 1% better. His writing combines the ideas of biology, psychology, and neuroscience to explain habit formation. He says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
You don’t arrive at the new relationship overnight. You vote every day for your future relationship. And your vote is built of emotion. Positive emotions cement habits. It’s a virtuous cycle.
So make your vote today send you in the direction of that relationship filled with intimacy and connection. Your true companion. You do this by celebrating your directional vector.

 

What does celebration look like?

Short answer: a feel-good emotion. Rote recitation of a win doesn’t count. You are looking for that moment when your body, brain, and spirit all align to celebrate. You feel the happiness, the pride, the ease, the relief, the contentment, or the peace.

Do you remember the husband who came into my office certain his marriage was over? I told you his story last week when I explained how deadly your negativity bias can be to your relationship.

I wish you could have been with me in the room when he came in for an appointment, took hold of my hand to shake it and said, “Rebecca, my wife loves me. She loves me, Rebecca. She’s never stopped loving me. But just like you said, she couldn’t feel my love and she was just protecting herself.”

Here was this man who thought his marriage was over. In our first session he truly thought he was coaching with me to transition out of his marriage. And here he is today: Bright-eyed. A smile on his face that originates in the heels of his feet.

He realized he’s married to his true companion.

He’s glowing. He’s radiating gentleness. His confidence is through the roof.

And we celebrate together. I ask him to tell me the WHOLE story.

 

From Negativity Bias to Celebration…the Whole Story

Remember last week when I told you this guy was scared of hugging his wife? The degradation of anyone’s everyday affection is easy to have happen. You’re busy. Life is life-in’.

But this occasional collapse of tender affection quickly turns into complete neglect, and then you find yourself like my client…not having given—or received—a tender hello in months.

You begin to wonder…are we falling out of love? Headed for a break up?

That negativity bias is wide awake! Warning my client how vulnerable it would be to hug his wife. That’s where he was when he came into my office.

But we used those 3 steps we talked about last week—Name it, tame it, and muscle up—to quiet his negativity bias.

We came up with a dozen strategies he could employ to bridge the gap between himself and his wife.

Then I told him how CRITICAL it was for him to celebrate.

 

The key to celebrating your wins

“Here’s my warning,” I said, “Don’t celebrate her response, no matter how positive or negative it is.”

He looked at me and shook his head, “But isn’t the whole point to get my wife to want to hug me as much as I want to hug her?” he asked.

“That might be a lucky outcome of your tenderness toward her,” I said. “But you have no control over her nor her behavior. The only person you can control is yourself. When you keep the focus on yourself and your actions, that’s where the magic lives.”

“So what I’m supposed to just reach out to her over and over no matter the response?” my client is frustrated with me now.

Oh Sweet Listener, I understand his frustration. He’s mad at me because I’m delivering a truth about the world he doesn’t want to hear. He wants me to fix his wife. He wants me to fix his marriage.

But I am powerless to do that. HE is powerless to do that.

 

The only person he can impact is himself

He hates hearing this. He wants to resist.

But he wants something else even more than he wants to resist this truth about his marriage. He wants to be hugged in that tender way that tells him he belongs. That he is truly loved.

He knows he has been distracted in the past year. He knows he’s dropped the ball. And now he really, really, wants to find his way back to a loving relationship. He’s willing to try anything.

Even letting go of how his wife responds.

I remind him that, even if he loses his marriage, the journey he’s about to embark on will teach HIM how to foster deep intimacy. If not with his wife, then he will learn so much about love that he will draw it into his orbit with someone else.

He nods. He wipes away the tear that is trailing down his cheek.

“I’m ready, Rebecca.” He says to me, “I’m ready to try.” This is where real transformation lives. In the liminal space between true grief and imaginative hope.

 

Celebrate who YOU are becoming

Together he and I come up with a dozen ways he can initiate a tender hello that doesn’t expose him to a nuclear amount of vulnerability. “You need to keep yourself safe while still reaching out,” I guide him.

Our list includes things like:

• Rubbing her back if she’s cooking in the kitchen
• Telling her a happy story from his day
• Commenting that she looks nice
• Mentioning something he’d like to do and inviting her to join him

Then I remind him of the number one habit that is the basis of every strong relationship: “As you celebrate these steps you’re taking,” I say to him, “If you’re really serious about building a loving relationship, remember to stay in your own business.”

He laughs. He rolls his eyes. He runs his fingers through his hair with exasperation.

“No matter how she responds,” I say, “Your task is to celebrate YOUR habit of the tender hello. It’s not about her reaction. You can’t control her reaction,” I remind him. “So you need to stay focused on your own actions. It’s about consistency. And tenacity,” I say.

Then I tell him it took more than 2 months—more than 60 attempts—for me to change the dynamic in my marriage hello. You can’t let her response dissuade you. So you need to find something different to celebrate.

Listener, if you haven’t heard my story of how my tender hello saved my marriage, you might enjoy listening to episode #8 of this podcast. It’s called…and I’ve linked to it in the show notes.

“Celebrate who YOU are becoming,” I said to my client. “Celebrate how inventive you are. Celebrate your consistency. Celebrate your feeble attempts and your fabulous attempts. They all count. Celebrate every single time you bring tenderness through your front door.”

I tell him to text me with his celebrations. I tell him to find a buddy he can talk to. I help him collect his cheer-squad so he has a whole handful of places and people to celebrate with him.

Because celebrating makes ALL the difference.

 

Why does celebrating make all the difference?

Let’s go back to the research and HOW your body works. Your body chemistry is wired to feel good. It likes loops of things that deposit that little bit of dopamine into your system.

Addiction is based on this chemistry experiment. We do what it takes to get that rush of feel-good chemicals. But you can make this fact of biology work in your favor as well: Find the dopamine by celebrating.

Chase those happiness chemicals. Cement them into your habit-formation cycle.

One day, my client’s wife is going to be the dopamine supplier. You and I know this because I told you the end of the story up front. But she didn’t start supplying that dopamine for a long time.

My client had to find it himself first…so the habit would STAY in place long enough for his wife to take him seriously. To trust him. Long enough for her body to be seduced by his positivity.

1. What is something new you did for the first time?

It’s really tricky to do anything the first time. That includes a tender hello after years of neglect, or making dinner because you and your partner agreed to do the occasional chore that typically belongs in the realm of your partner.

But getting over the hurdle of the first time is the defining step when it comes to putting something into practice. So let’s celebrate your first time.

You can totally suck, and still celebrate that you made the first attempt. So if your tender hello sounded like this, “Um, I’m supposed to say an actual hello to you. So…hello,” it still counts as the first-time accomplishment and I mean it when I say let’s celebrate it.

A celebration might be laughter: Well, there’s nowhere to go but up with a “tender” hello like that.

Or it might be a humble brag: I know it’s not the hello I ultimately want to give to you, partner, but I can’t tell you how self-conscious I was about attempting that. Thanks for being patient with me as I learn this new way to walk in the house at the end of the day.

When you celebrate doing something for the first time, you drive home the idea that you are brave and willing to do new things. Hooray you!

 

2. What is easy now that used to be hard?

I love, love, love this celebration. Change is hard, and it often takes a long time, so I love the chance to notice when something used to be a real challenge for me and I had to dig deep in order to do it, but now, it’s easy.

When you recognize the thing that used to be hard and now is easy, you are telling yourself how successfully you are changing and growing. You have evidence!

You might celebrate that it’s easy now for you to anticipate the kids’ rhythm at bedtime and anticipate ahead of time what will allow them to calm down and go to sleep. When you take a brief moment to reflect on the pandemonium and the temper flares of those early bedtimes, you have evidence that you are getting this parenthood thing figured out.

Way to go you!

 

3. What fear did you conquer by taking action?

Here’s the thing: action is the antidote to fear. When you take action, you tell your fear, “I understand you’re trying to send me a message, and I’m going to survive.”

And when you do survive, your fear diminishes.

So when you notice that you notice that you conquered a fear by taking action, that’s a virtuous cycle.

 

4. What vulnerability did you face?

Maybe your goal for 2026 is to spice up your sex life. There are a zillion vulnerabilities you can expect to face with a goal like that one. So let’s celebrate!

Maybe you and your partner bought a deck of cards that will allow you to have the cards drive a conversation about sexual preferences.

Choosing those cards…that’s a big vulnerable feeling! You took action and had that deck delivered to your house!

I hear some of you saying, “But the cards aren’t even at the house yet! How is that a success?” I’m so glad you asked!

Celebration over every step helps to solidify a goal. How many times have you talked about talking about sex with no change? You know you want to get more comfortable having those kinds of conversations, but when you feel vulnerable, it’s so easy to kick the can down the road.

THAT’S why it’s soooo important to celebrate a decisive move like ordering the deck of cards even though you still haven’t had a single conversation.

You took decisive action. Celebrate!

Here’s what that might look like in my house: I might send a text to my husband saying, I love you so much that I’m even willing to order a deck of cards that will be sure to turn my face bright red.

I have a friend though who would send a different text in this circumstance. Her text would sound like this: Get ready to discover my every fantasy! I ordered this deck of cards today.

Now if you are the partner on the receiving end of either of these texts I recommend you respond in an over-the-top celebratory way. It’s a terrible feeling to overcome a vulnerability and have your partner “ho-hum” about it.

 

5. What are you doing consistently now that was once a rare occurrence?

This is like the what is easy now question. When you notice what you’re able to do regularly—maybe without even thinking about it—that once was a chore, you give yourself evidence that you are busy BECOMING the person you want to be.

 

6. What are you proud of today?

This is my favorite celebration question. It applies to anyone for any day. And it’s a GREAT counterbalance to your negativity bias. This question essentially turns, “What’s wrong?” into “what’s right?”

When you notice that you’re proud of yourself, that is the best thing you can do to cement a habit. Because it’s not outcome based. Your pride can be based on your effort alone.

You might be proud because you made a nice dinner for your partner. Or you might be proud because, instead of just thinking about your partner during the day, you sent a text telling them so.

When you notice the behaviors you have that feed your relationship, you will automatically get more of those behaviors.

It’s a virtuous cycle: we do something we’re proud of. We take time to notice and celebrate that behavior, and your body and brain will go looking for an opportunity to repeat that tomorrow.

You might be proud that you didn’t say anything about your partner’s shoes that are constantly strewn about the house. Being proud of that today might lead you to simply put those shoes away tomorrow. Tiny favors are the centerpiece of a strong relationship.

 

6. What do you see your partner doing that you want to celebrate?

This one is fun because it is double dipping. You will feel joy by mentioning it, and your partner will feel thrilled that you noticed.

What does this look like? Maybe as you’re getting ready for bed you give your partner a kiss and say, “I really loved that tender hello you gave me when you got home today. What a great way to start the evening.”

Here are those questions again:

1. What is something new you did for the first time?
2. What is easy that used to be hard?
3. What fear did you conquer?
4. What vulnerability did you face?
5. What are you now doing consistently that once was hard?
6. What are you proud of today?
7. Finally, what do you see your partner doing that you want to celebrate?

How about you?

I love being included in your life. So text me at 970-210-4480 and let me celebrate with you. Let me give you that gold star because you are being true to your values and you’re putting a vector of direction into your destination. Hooray you!