Remember To Reward Yourself

When the conditions are just right on a Sunday morning – cooler temperatures and, even better, a cloudy day during one of the Non-Summer months – at 8:00 AM, you will find my wife and I walking through the turnstiles, just about to head up to catch the monorail into Disneyland via Downtown Disney. This Sunday morning ritual that we try to undertake at least once a month for nine months out of the year is one of the most enjoyable non-working experiences of my life these days.

Once inside the park, we undertake a loosely standardized regiment that consists of a good amount of walking, a number of our favorite rides, and thanks to the off-time and early morning, not a lot of standing in line. A normal Sunday sees us head right to Small World, followed by stints at Pirates, the Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones, the Rivers of America boat ride as well as Star Tours. Sometimes we deviate and walk along Main Street or head over to walk at California Adventure, occasionally going on a ride or two on that side instead.

Usually by 11:00 AM, the park has filled up a bit and the clouds have either burned off and/or the temperature has increased enough that we’ve had our fill and are ready to move on to our next activity. Sometimes we have lunch at Downtown Disney, sometimes we have breakfast in the park, and we were even known to pay the inflated cost for the all-you-can-eat BBQ at Big Thunder Ranch before it was closed to make way for Star Wars Land. And while you may think this is some attempt for us to relive our childhoods, it is, in fact, almost the opposite. Our childhoods didn’t involve a lot of trips to Disneyland – definitely many fewer trips than we see kids in our neck of the woods making these days.

See, if I can make it to Disneyland nine times in the course of a year, in that year, I will have walked through the gates into the theme park more times than I did in the first 18 years of my life. While I am forever grateful for all of the people who worked hard and sacrificed to make those trips over the course of my first 18 years possible, the true bliss of these Sunday morning walks and rides is the sense of accomplishment we feel in the fact that we can now go there so often.

I whole-heartedly believe it is important for each of us to work hard and accomplish as much as we can to benefit not only ourselves but also those around us. It is important for each of us to discover what we have to offer an industry, a market and/or an employer, as well as the people in our lives. But I also feel it is just as important for us to take a step back every once in a while, put down all the electronic devices, and do something that allows us to feel rewarded for all of that hard work. These Sunday morning trips to Disneyland are just one of the little rewards we give ourselves over the course of the year.

I encourage each of you to not only work hard and find your niche in this world, but to also find something you can do to reward yourself for those accomplishments in a meaningful way. Find something that not only brings you joy, but also provides motivation to keep up the hard work – the motivation to keep driving yourself forward to surpass even more of your goals. Always remember that while hard work and dedication is paramount to your success, if you don’t take the moments to enjoy the fruits of your success, then you just might miss the point of all of that hard work. 

Photo by William L. Savastano