Do you congratulate yourself for doing something good? You should. If someone working for you did something innovative or new you would compliment him. In fact this is what makes some managers great and others tyrants. Don’t be a bad manager to yourself. Celebrate your achievements and criticize your mistakes. But moderation in both cases is important. Treat yourself just as you would treat a colleague or someone you supervise.

It is very easy to congratulate yourself. After all you already know all your great abilities and successes. In fact you might already be overly proud of your work. It is also easy to reward yourself since you already what you like or dislike. I already know that a steak dinner or movie and popcorn would be perfect for me. But don’t go overboard. If you want to congratulate yourself for gaining 1000 RSS subscribers then don’t buy a new house. Moderation is essential.

We are all harsh critics of ourselves. We push everything to the limit and say to ourselves we need this to succeed. When something fails we blame the equipment, the computer, the network or other people. But in our hearts we know it is our own fault. During these times try not to judge and criticize yourself. Instead focus on what you can do to prevent this failure in the future. And remember to learn something new from each experience and congratulate yourself. Why? Because you have learnt something new from your failure.