This past Wednesday, an epic event overtook the city of Seattle: the Seahawks Super Bowl victory parade. According to news reports, some 700,000 people flooded the downtown streets to go full Beast Mode and revel in the Seahawks’ win—the first Super Bowl victory in the history of the franchise. In a city of 634,535, this very well may have been the largest gathering in Seattle history.

The event was certainly momentous in every sense of the word. The Seattle City Council voted to name the day “Seattle Seahawks Day.” Gov. Jay Inslee declared 12:12 p.m. an observed “moment of loudness” across the entire state. Many businesses closed, some schools shut down and those that didn’t experienced unusually high absentee rates. Transportation routes and downtown establishments were completely overwhelmed by the tremendous influx of attendees.

Along with a couple of my colleagues, I personally took a few hours away from my desk to trek down to the parade route. And as I stood on the sidewalk, chock-full of screaming Seattleites donning blue and green, I was reminded of a fact that we often forget: the importance of taking the time to celebrate success. Many missed work that day, skipped school or trekked for miles, but each bystander made time to come and rejoice, along with the fellow 12th Man, in our—yes, our—Super Bowl win. This was our team, our city and our success—and little could stop anyone from celebrating it.

As PR pros, we enjoy investing our time into projects for our clients, and work hard and often to deliver results. In such a fast-paced setting, it can be easy to get swept up in the work, shifting immediately from one achievement into working toward another. But to be truly productive, we need motivation—and being recognized for our achievements is one of the greatest motivators we have in the workplace.

We’ve all heard that it is important to set goals—they give us something to work toward and create a sense of purpose that inspires us. However, there is little point in establishing goals unless you take the time to recognize when you’ve reached them. This recognition can be invaluable to promoting confidence and pride in our work—which translates into more meaningful, quality results.

Here at Communiqué, we certainly value taking the time to celebrate accomplishments among our colleagues and our clients—honoring these individual achievements helps ensure the success of our entire team. From pats on the back to team outings and parties, we think it’s tremendously important to stop every now and then to just enjoy a moment of celebration. We take great pride in delivering valuable results for our clients—and recognizing when we’ve done a good job just makes it that much more rewarding.

Oh, and GO HAWKS!