This guest post is part of our ongoing Small Business Perspectives series, and is written by Karen Hodges, principle at Synthesis Coaching in Rhode Island.

I’ve been thinking today about how we have so many celebrations in our personal life — birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, etc. — yet celebrations seem to be missing in our business lives.

Over the weekend, I led two different half-day workshops. The weekend was kicked off on Saturday with “New Year, New You” about creating a vision for your life in 2010, and was followed up on Sunday with “Using the Energy of Winter, about mining the energies unique to winter in both your personal and work life.

As you can imagine, months of activity occurred behind the scenes to make both workshops happen:

I had to write emails and then schedule each to be sent out in a timely way.

I spent time on social media sites promoting my workshops to LinkedIn and Facebook groups, as well as on my own wall.

I had to track incoming registrations making sure all information needed was provided.

I created and submitted a notice to local publications for both print and online calendar listings.

I asked friends if they would forward my email to anyone in their email list that might be interested.

I had to answer emails from prospective attendees.

I had to plan out the format of the day for “New Year, New You” with my partner which required a total of 4 conversations from conception through completing the workshop.

Oh, and last but certainly not least, I had to write both workshops.

Whew, it takes a lot of time and effort to build a workshop!  The good news is the workshops were successful —they were well attended and in each workshop the women bonded together and walked away with some real insights.

So, now I say its time to for me to celebrate! I’m giving myself a gold star for a job well done and have decided that my reward will be to take time off. My reward of down time feels all the more delicious because I’ve decided to take a break right smack in the middle of my workday.

When you were a kid, do you remember that feeling of getting a gold star as a reward for a job well done? Motivating, right?

Business building takes time and sustained effort and celebrating even the mini-milestones helps me to stay motivated and re-energized.

So go ahead, take a moment to think about what you can celebrate in your business right now. No goal or accomplishment is too small.

Maybe you called a prospect today that you’ve been putting off for months because you were afraid of being rejected. Celebrate that you made the phone call, regardless of what outcome results. Or perhaps you got one new client or account —sure it’s not the ten new accounts that is your end goal — but worthy of a celebration.

What can you celebrate today in your business? What reward can you give yourself that will help you to stay upbeat and motivated?

I’d love to hear from you.