A photo of a white woman gluing pictures to whiteboard to represent the topic of the article - Achievements Collage A Quick And Easy Way To Celebrate Yourself

Achievements Collage: An Easy Way To Celebrate Yourself

A couple of years ago, I wrote a lengthy article on positive psychology and positive psychology interventions. Positive psychology became one of my favourite theories after studying in during my postgraduate degree. As such, I’m always looking for ways to integrate it into my work. This is one of those times. The achievements collage taps into the concept of being “Meaning Oriented”, whereby you get contentment and happiness through achieving things. So let’s celebrate your greatest achievements by collating all of your images into a beautifully crisp collage.

 

Completing an achievements collage will also allow you to engage in “Positive Self-Appraisal”. Too often we’re led a stray by our thinking errors. We tune out the positives that happen in our lives to focus on the negatives. Having an achievements collage to look at will function as a reminder of the good things that have happened and help keep you motivated.

 

Furthermore, having an achievements collage will help combat your negative intrusive thoughts in a fun and creative way. I’m forever plagued by negative intrusive thoughts, which is why this idea appealed to me as a way that might help others.

 

Contents show

 

What Is Positive Psychology?

 

For those of you who are wondering what positive psychology is, then you should read my article on it by clicking here. But to save time, let me briefly sum it up.

 

This simple definition was provided by Peterson (2008). Positive psychology is the scientific approach to studying our thoughts, behaviours, and feeling, with a focus on our strengths rather than the weaknesses. The aim is to move away from solely focusing on moving people from struggling up to “normal”, and instead take people up to “great”.

 

Basically, it’s an approach that wants to work with people who don’t really have any issues and are getting by feeling their ok selves, intending to lift them to a better state of being. And what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The same positive psychology methods and interventions can also help people who are struggling with their mental health and wellbeing.

 

The picture is split in two with the top image being of a white persons holding a racing medal, and the bottom image being of a pile of polaroid photos spread out. The two images are separated by the article title - Achievements Collage A Quick And Easy Way To Celebrate Yourself

 

Achievements For Your Achievements Collage

 

The reason I’ve included this section is that you’d be surprised how hard people find remembering their achievements because of their thinking errors. To make sure you don’t get stuck here too, here are some examples of achievements.

 

Common examples

  • Getting an award.
  • Exam results.
  • Other academic success and qualifications gained.
  • Promotions.

 

Other achievements that count

  • Overcoming your imposter syndrome to put yourself out there, such as applying for a promotion, going to an interview, asking for a raise, etc. no matter the outcome.
  • Helping someone else.
  • Completing a task on time.
  • Doing chores you’ve been putting off for months because of depression.
  • Learning a new skill.
  • Overcoming a problem.
  • Making improvements to your mental health.
  • Doing something nice for someone.
  • Reaching a milestone.
  • Asking for help.

 

 

How To Create Your Achievements Collage

 

One way you could make your achievements collage is to use Canva. Canva has a section of templates you can use to make a simple collage. You can find their templates by clicking here. However, you can just as easily go old school and craft something by hand, using a scrapbook or a journal.

 

A basic plan for creating your achievements collage

  1. Select your photos and images you want to use. One way to do this could be to decide on a theme to make use of the collage to tell a story.
  2. Then, arrange images and photos by selecting or creating a layout.
  3. Next, if you’ve decided you want to tell a story, arrange your images and photos to bring your story to life.
  4. Now you can add some customisation, colour, patterns, and texture to personalise it and enhance it.
  5. When all that’s done, add any text you feel the achievements collage could benefit from.

 

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My Achievements Collage

 

What I did for my achievements collage was to look at Canva for some ideas. I then used another app, Paint.net, to create the collage on my laptop. I use Paint.net to create most of the images I make for Unwanted Life. It’s a free app, and it gave me the extra flexibility I needed to finish my achievements collage quickly.

 

The theme I picked for my achievements collage was the milestones and achievements I’d got from my blog, Unwanted Life. I picked my blog because sometimes I’ve wanted to quit, but remembering these things has helped to keep me going.

 

My blogging Achievements Collage

 

Top left you’ll see one of my first achievements when I reached a hundred followers on WordPress. Top right was the first article I’d published on another site, which was a personal story about my childhood. Bottom left is a screenshot of my first nomination for a mental health blogging award run by Mental Health Blog Awards. I hadn’t heard of them before, so it was a really pleasant surprise for someone to nominate me. I didn’t win, but it was still nice to be nominated. The last image is from my nominations in three categories with Mental Health Blog Awards last year, which I also didn’t win. But I still consider it an achievement.

 

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Other Uses For An Achievements Collage

 

An achievements collage doesn’t have to be something you create for yourself. You could also make one as a gift to make for other people to bring them some positivity. It could be an activity to do with your children to help install a healthy approach to their mental health (check out my article, How To Teach Children About Mental Health). You could also make it a work project for one of the various national mental health and self-care days that happens each year.

 

What do you think would be another good use for an achievements collage? Let me know in the comments section at the bottom of the article.

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with crafting an achievements collage in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, get push notifications for new articles by clicking the red bell icon in the bottom right corner.

 

Lastly, if you’d like to support my blog, you can make a donation of any size below. Until next time, Unwanted Life readers.

 

 

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References

Peterson, C. (2008). What is positive psychology, and what is it not? Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-good-life/200805/what-is-positive-psychology-and-what-is-it-not.

45 thoughts on “Achievements Collage: An Easy Way To Celebrate Yourself”

  1. I wasn’t really so focused on orangizing my things when I was in school and collage. I do have some people who can’t remember as well haha. This will be perfect for them. Thank you for sharing!

  2. I’ve never considered on making a collage, mainly because I’m not the most artistic person, but I can see the benefits of creating one, especially for mental health.

  3. What an interesting idea. I’ve never made a collage but I pin some of my kids achievement documents on a notice board

  4. Love the sounds of this achievements collage; I have often played around with vision boards, but I love the idea of focusing on something more grounded and present as opposed to the future! <3

  6. This is a great read, and I enjoyed it. People always about creating a vision board to get you focys and motivated on your future, but I love the idea of an achievements collage. This too u l csn give you the motivation to keep pushing and accomplishing other goals.

  7. I love this! While I love positive reinforcement, I don’t tend to celebrate my successes. This is a tangible way to do so by creating a permanent reminder. Thanks!

  8. collages always give me nostalgic feels because i used to sit in my childhood bedroom & clip images out of magazines for fun and make inspirational collages. it’s funny how now – these are becoming trendy and seen as vision boards for our future. i’m a very visual learner – so i think that’s why i always gravitated to making these.

    • When I was a kid, collages were pretty common to do, but then we had like one computer for the whole school back then. Times have changed and so collages are rarely done growing up, making them an easy mental wellbeing activity

  9. What a great idea!! I love this and you’re right, doing it in Canva would make it much easier ( I found that with my intention boards I do how easy it it). I love this idea of celebrating yourself, especially in those moments we all have when we start forgetting the achievements we’ve done and are focused on the negative. Love this post thanks for sharing.

  11. This is a fantastic idea! I love it because it is realistic. You use everything you have achieved already to celebrate those victories and cheer for yourself. I recently used canva to create a vision board, so, I guess I will use it again this time using my existing victories. Thank you!

  12. I love this idea! It reminds me of a vision board, but it looks back on what you have already achieved rather than what you want to achieve. I love the visual reminder. One time, I created a binder of my career achievements and took it to a job interview.

  14. I’ve never thought of creating an achievements collage and after reading this article, I thought to myself, “what would I include in mine?” It’s hard for me to come up with ideas for this, surprisingly or not so surprisingly, as you have mentioned. All in all, this is a great way to celebrate oneself. Thank you for sharing!

  17. The concept of an Achievements Collage is brand new to me. And I couldn’t love it more. All of it. From your brave examples to explicit directions to linking it to the mental health of children. FANTASTIC post!

  18. I’ve never heard of a achievement college before but I’m loving the idea of this. It’s so easy to be overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts that we forget to celebrate everything we’ve achieved. I’ll 100% be making on of these for myself to remind me of how far I’ve come. Thank you so much for sharing Xo

    Elle – ellegracedeveson.com

  19. Celebrating your successes is important!

    An achievement collage is a fun and creative way to celebrate and acknowledge what you’ve accomplished

  21. I love this idea! I’ve made vision boards before, but I’ve never considered making a similar “achievement” board. That’s a really cool idea.

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