💌 Buy Yourself a Greeting Card
Celebrate Your Major or Tiny Milestones
👋 Hello. It’s Julia. Thank you for dialing into this edition. I’m hosting a special subscriber-only Newsletter Club for The Switchboard’s community. The next session is February 28th. It focuses on Work Hacks to Support Happiness & Success. Join me!
On this Valentine’s Day Eve, I have a confession. Last year, I bought myself a greeting card! I saw it on the shelf at Trader Joe's, and I made a spontaneous 99-cent purchase. It’s one of the best investments I’ve made in my career. Here’s why I highly recommend it:
🍞 🍓 Celebrate You
I had a special professional occasion to celebrate, but it didn’t feel like the right time to share publicly beyond family and friends. This card was the perfect way to mark the milestone with a turquoise toaster (favorite color), strawberry jam (favorite flavor) and two pieces of bread that declared: “A Toast to You.” Before I placed it on my desk, I had a greeting card photoshoot with flowers:
Inside, it reads “Congrats on a job well done!” on burnt toast — what a metaphor!
I placed the card on my desk to see it every day as I work. Every time I look at the card, it reminds me of that wonderful career highlight and makes me smile plus laugh at myself because it’s not that often we hear about people buying themselves a greeting card, let alone admitting it publicly.
🧪 The Science Behind the Cheerfulness
Intrigued by how I felt each time I looked at the card, I investigated the science behind my emotions. Turns out, there’s research that backs up how I feel. Dr. BJ Flogg is the Founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University and the Tiny Habits method. At TED Ideas, he shared: “how the power of celebration can wire new behaviors into our lives — and make us feel great in the process.”
In my research, I’ve found that adults have many ways to tell themselves “I did a bad job” and very few ways of saying “I did a good job.”...We rarely recognize our successes and feel good about our accomplishments. We focus only on our shortcomings as we scamper through our days and trudge through our years…
Feeling good is a vital part of the Tiny Habits method. You can create this good feeling by using a technique I call “celebration.” When you celebrate, you create a positive feeling inside yourself on demand. This good feeling wires the new habit into your brain. Celebration is both a specific technique for behavior change and a psychological frame shift….
When I teach people about human behavior, I boil it down to three words: Emotions create habits. Not repetition. Not frequency. Not fairy dust. Emotions. When you are designing for habit formation — for yourself or for someone else — you are really designing for emotions…Celebration is the best way to use emotions and create a positive feeling that wires in new habits.
With my greeting card purchase, I had unintentionally also picked up a new “Tiny Habit” of self-appreciation. A few months later, I went back to Trader Joe’s to find more cards that might spark a similar feeling in the future, perhaps these could be a good fit for you at a professional or personal milestone ahead:
🪐 You’re Out of this World
💃 You’ve Got the Moves
🍵 Have a Tea-rrific Day
🥞 You’re Flippin’ Awesome
🔮 What’s Next
Looking back, I realized that I never wrote myself a note inside the card, perhaps that’s the next step you could take if you choose to buy yourself a greeting card this year. Let me know how it goes, and the mighty “Tiny Habit” you might pick up along the way. You deserve it at a special moment or an everyday accomplishment!
☎️ The Switchboard Exchange
Here’s a roundup of my recent favorite links featuring inspiring leaders:
Gorik Ng: What Trader Joe’s can teach us about having a point of view
AJ Thomas: Exploring curiosity with A Kids Book About Teams
Chris Anderson: Infectious Generosity — A TED talk and book
Priya Parker: Filling Your Gathering Cup
📰 Related Editions
Below are past editions of The Switchboard with resources on smiling and laughing, which are central themes to celebrating, just like buying yourself a greeting card.
If these topics resonate, you’ll enjoy the next session of Newsletter Club on February 28th. It focuses on Work Hacks to Support Happiness & Success. Join me and The Switchboard community. Register below.
📊 Shape a Future Edition
This is the first time I’ve announced an interview in advance for The Switchboard! I’m inviting y’all to shape the questions.
With over 300K+ followers on LinkedIn, Lorraine K. Lee speaks, consults, and teaches hundreds of thousands of professionals to become more recognized, influential, successful, and empowered and supercharge their professional presence.
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I love this—and the images of the TJ cards you included! I bought one I’ve never sent. It’s titled “The Recipe for Success” and is filled with homespun wisdom like “1 handful of ideas, roughly chopped” and “2 tablespoons figuring it out as you go.” I think I’ll keep it. Happy Valentine’s Day, Julia! 🌹💕