Let recognition be a moment of pleasure before making plans to deserve more.

Praise tends to be converted into pressure almost immediately. Before the pleasure has landed you are already working out how to keep it, repeat it, prove it was deserved, and the recognition passes without ever being felt. That planning is not really ambition, but a way of not sitting still with something good. Enjoying it first costs you nothing at all.

The next time somebody recognizes your work, do nothing with it for a day. Read it, feel it, and leave the plans until afterwards.