There’s a strange power that trophies, awards, achievement plaques, ribbons, certificates, and other such things hold over people. Having been assigned great honor and significance by the presenting party, be that a sports league, a committee, or an organization, these tokens of recognition can feel like mandatory possessions. It would be an abomination to even consider letting go of something that so many people competed over or vied for…wouldn’t it?

Image credit: Heather Nette King via The Design Files

Nope.

A talisman of success or prestige or recognition is a thing like any other, which is to say that it, itself, is meaningless. Its power derives from the meaning you imbue it with. And like all things, trophies and awards are things a person might ostensibly one day find that they no longer have an energetic connection with.

And it won’t be because you’re no longer proud of your past success, or because you’re cold, or even because you’ve risen above entirely above the level of the ego. It will be because you’ve fully processed the related experience, fully incorporated whatever lessons you learned from that moment, and you’ve fully inscribed the victory on your spirit. And when you’ve done that, you no longer need the physical trophy in order for it, and the memory of that moment, to be real.

This isn’t a directive for you to scrap your awards if they’re important to you. This is merely a reminder that you are allowed to release any thing, including awards, if you no longer ascribe importance to, or derive happiness from, their physical form.

I don’t care if it’s a bin full of blue ribbons from your riding days, some weird structural glass object presented by your company, or your Harvard diploma (you heard me). If it doesn’t light you up, you are free to let that thing go.

No weird feelings of guilt allowed. After all, you’re the winner; you do what you want.