Important Career Milestones You Should Celebrate

If there's one thing that most people love to do, it's celebrating major life milestones, especially when it comes to growth. There's always a massive birthday party for people turning 21. Weddings and baby showers are all about enjoying that milestone's achievement and celebrating the growth of a family.

You know what else grows? Your career.

Sadly, we often treat work as something that detracts from life — when in reality, it often makes our lives a lot better. We should appreciate the career milestones we hit just as much as we appreciate the life milestones we hit.

Can't think of any major career milestones? Here are some important career milestones you should celebrate — and why you should celebrate them.

Graduating High School

Graduating high school is one of the earliest important career milestones you should celebrate. After all, not everyone actually graduates with a high school degree. According to the most recent statistics, around 20 percent of all high school students in America do not graduate from high school.

In some states like New Mexico, almost 3 out of every 10 kids don't graduate. So, celebrate it. You literally survived high school.

Graduating College/Trade School

Every single time you get a degree or a certificate that furthers your education, you're achieving important career milestones you should celebrate. Neither college nor trade school is easy to finish, and only half of all people who start college finish with a diploma.

Though you don't need college to succeed, having a degree in your hand will help you get hired — and the more degrees you have, the higher your salary is expected to be.

Getting A Job With An Hourly Wage

Many of the more important career milestones you should celebrate aren't celebrated because we don't recognize the importance of having achieved that. Even a minimum wage job can turn into an amazing opportunity to make money, get promoted, or learn new skills.

It may seem trivial, but even if you got your first job at McDonald's, you need to treat it as a major career milestone. You have accomplished something many people wish they could: getting a job that pays you on a regular basis.

After all, a shocking number of people end up in MLM schemes these days. Count yourself lucky you're not one of them.

Getting A Salaried Job

Obviously, if hourly jobs are important career milestones you should celebrate, you should also be pretty happy about getting a salaried job. A salaried job isn't just a sign of stability, it also means that you've gotten somewhere in your career that many others haven't.

According to recent statistics, over half of all Americans only receive hourly wages — or commissions. This means, in its own way, that your career is now higher up there than most of your neighbors. Kinda mind-blowing, isn't it?

On a similar note, getting a promotion or a raise is an obvious reason to celebrate. So, do that.

Finishing A Major Career Project

In many cases, people tend to celebrate starting a project...only to never actually finish the project in question and look like a fool. If this happened to you, don't worry. This also has happened to major names in every industry, including Alejandro Jodorowski, with his famous Dune movie.

It takes a lot of work and focus to actually see a project through to completion, which makes any career-centric project's conclusion one of the most important career milestones you should celebrate.

You did it, whatever "it" may be. Many others would have given up and left their beginnings on the scrap floor with a bunch of pipe dreams by the side. You actually saw it through, and now you have something better on your resume.

Getting Media Attention For Your Career

People in just about every industry can get media attention for something they've accomplished in their career — if they are good enough to warrant it. If you have had interviews with reporters about your field, or if you got rave reviews from a magazine, it's a big deal.

In fact, depending on how big the attention is, it's one of the more important career milestones you should celebrate. Of course, this assumes that the attention you got is positive. Otherwise, you might end up seeing a drop in client numbers or worse.

Starting A Side Business

Side businesses don't ever really seem like much these days, but the truth is that starting them is an important career milestone you should celebrate. The Great Recession has taught us that being cuffed to a job is not a wise decision since layoffs can happen to even the best employees.

A side business can be the saving grace that keeps you from homelessness. At times, it can even grow to be your main career. So, you might as well celebrate new beginnings, even if they are modest at first.