By Charlotte Carter

This month I’m celebrating eight years as a member of Curves®, the women’s 30-minute exercise program. After eight years, I’m not exactly buff (not even close), but this is the only exercise program that I’ve ever stuck with.

So I’m patting myself on the back!

For those of you who go to a gym regularly, enter 10K races or, gulp, do marathons, you may not think eight years at Curves® is all that great.

In my world view, you should congratulate yourself for achieving the smallest success or reaching an admirable milestone you’ve strived to achieve. (Including running a marathon if that’s what you think is fun.) Chances are all too good that no one else will stand up and cheer for you unless you cheer for yourself.

Certainly, a writer’s life is filled with negatives: rejections, unhelpful comments from critique partners, negative reviews, pronouncements that the publishing world is crashing around us. In this business, praise is a scarce commodity.

To be a successful writer, you need to be your own best cheer leader. You wrote a great scene today? Whoohoo! You finished a chapter? A double Whoohoo! You sent out a query letter, you submitted a proposal, you wrote something for your blog today. Give yourself a standing ovation.

I think to be a successful person you need to appreciate and value yourself. What have you done today that deserves an ‘atta boy?’

Let me know.

Books that leave you smiling From Love Inspired: Montana Hearts, available now Big Sky Reunion, 5/2011 Big Sky Family, 11/2011