This month marks my 7th anniversary as the life coaching editor with Bellaonline! Aside from an unplanned six-week hiatus, I’ve been faithfully contributing articles on a weekly basis since October 2005.

The other day I looked at the dates of my early postings. I was late some weeks, posting after eight or nine days, then I’d catch up by posting every five days. By my one-year anniversary, I had my act together and began posting every Monday without fail. Sometimes I’d post at 11:35 pm, but I always made it. Last year I established a concrete deadline where I post by 3:00 every Monday afternoon. Currently, I’m ahead of schedule, writing and then posting articles to appear at a later date.

I’ve come a long way.

Accomplishing worthwhile goals isn’t easy. Along the way to achieving what you seek, there may be complications. One can get easily discouraged and wonder why they decided to pursue the track they chose to follow in the first place. However, if you take the time to both celebrate accomplishments along the way to your ultimate goal, and honor yourself by giving yourself a chance to enjoy other aspects of your life, it helps to make the process not appear insurmountable. - from an article by Career Coach Tony Calabrese on Selfgrowth.com

One-year anniversaries don’t mean much to me. One year could be a fluke, but not seven. A seven-year commitment doesn’t happen by accident. Finding a home for myself within a niche gives me a sense of security as a writer. To know I’ve committed for seven years, poured time, energy and attention into it. Without a doubt, I know I can and will continue on.

While I’m celebrating seven years of officially writing the life coaching column, I know this work didn’t just come out of nowhere. I’ve been writing about self-acceptance and success since I was a 16 year old lying on my bed scribbling in a diary almost two and a half decades ago. But I was not conscious of what I was doing. In the words of Ansen Dibell, I spent the last seven years bringing my unconscious craft under greater conscious control.

Recognizing that 20 years have passed since a graduation or that you have been married for 10 years or that you have been working for a company for 20 years allows you to think through all that you have accomplished in that time. It is also an opportunity to take stock and think about what you would like to do differently in the future. - from an article by Art Markman on psychologytoday.com.

I’m proud of this achievement and I’m “basking” as Martin Seligman urges us to do in Authentic Happiness. This seven-year anniversary was not given to me, I earned it. Spending hours on end searching for books. Interviewing experts and examining my own life for hidden lessons. Writing and writing and writing. Fighting with articles that just wouldn’t work. Abandoning some, only to revive them later.

It’s been a journey.

Another thing I discovered through this practice was that my fears of stopping to celebrate would result in settling or lack of motivation to move forward were unfounded. Quite the opposite resulted. I got to enjoy the NOW, feel a heck of a lot better about myself, and build a track record for future success…I could trust in and rely on myself. – from Paula Gregorowicz’s blog on Blogher.com