Small Wins Are the First Step

When you celebrate just one accomplishment you are recognizing yourself for getting the job done.  You are actually reinforcing this good behavior and as a result you will most likely move onto the next thing and get it done too!  It is so much better to build yourself up than beat yourself up.  And if you are celebrating a win on a project you are working on that means you are one step closer to achieving your goal.  Woohoo!

If you have been reading my blogs for a while you know that I created a “Done” list about a year ago.  I challenged myself to do something that scared me or that was out of my comfort zone for 30 days.  I celebrated every breakthrough that I had because some of them were pretty big.  Most of them were along the lines that my task was scarier when I thought about it than when I actually did it. Others gave me a huge sense of joy and accomplishment because I had been had waited a long time to do them.  You can also create a list of things that you already do and then check them off as you do them.  This gives you another opportunity to celebrate yourself.  If you do it enough times you will realize that you are capable of more than you think you are.  This snowball effect gets you closer to a happier, healthy life.

I wrote about a study by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in my blog last year, Celebrate Your Wins, and they found that celebrating small wins was motivating, a mood booster, and made people happy, whereas suffering a setback caused frustration, fear, and sadness. It makes sense, and now there’s data to back it up.

Let’s bump it up from what you do every day like brush your teeth and make your bed to working toward a goal.  Make sure you celebrate each small win you have along the way, not just achieving your goal.  So if you are setting the intention to walk every day, I want you to celebrate yourself when you come in after a walk around the block, after a five mile power walk, and everything in between.  If you are training for a 5k race, start by running one, then two, then three k, and give yourself a high five every day you run or even better, put it in a journal so you can see your progress.

I love the imagery that Emma Xu created by saying, “Tiny victories are like gems scattered on your journey, notice them.”  Emma is a physicist and was honored as one of 30 under 30 by Forbes magazine.  She captured the beauty and value of small wins by likening them to gems.  I just love it.  Each small step gets you closer to achieving your goal.  That is one of my foundational principles.  She also says that we need to appreciate them by noticing the small victories.  We will get a lot more out of life if we notice what we accomplish along the way.

Let’s face it.  Obstacles are everywhere.

I live in a rural area.  We live on a farm and we need to drive at least 20 plus minutes to get onto the main road and into the center of things.  Sometimes it’s a total drag and I wish I still lived in the city where I could just walk around the corner to get just about anything.  Instead, I crank up Kenny Chesney on No Shoes Radio and get my daily dose of happy, beach-inspired music with a few laughs along the way. Instead of thinking of it as a waste of time, I cherish my time in the car.  I reframe it that I “get to” spend some time with Kenny and the other musicians that are featured on that station. 

Just look at all the profiles of athletes, movie stars, and other celebrities.  Most of them have faced obstacles and limited resources, but they forged their way to the top anyway because they were determined to achieve their success.  Look at J.K. Rowling. She was poor, almost homeless, when she wrote the first Harry Potter book.  And Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job as an anchorwoman for being too emotionally involved with her stories.  It’s such sweet revenge to be worth $3 billion now.  And Katy Perry was a high school dropout and was dropped by 3 music labels before she became famous for “I kissed a girl.”  Obstacles will likely be a constant and you need to be ready to be persistent if you want to succeed.

That’s the beauty of small wins.  They are the beginning of your transformation.  With each small win you become stronger and better and you begin to feel the confidence that you have developed.  You have become the superhero that you have always dreamed of.

Put another way, small wins are like a series of steps on a stairway.  You get closer to the top with each small step you take.  Just keep going and going like the Energizer bunny.  Your success awaits you.