159 Celebrating Small Wins

Celebrating Small Wins

Today I wanted to talk about the importance of celebrating your wins, even the smallest wins you don’t think it’s worth celebrating. Celebrate them because celebrating small wins triggers feelings of pride, increased confidence, motivation and joy. This helps to keep you working towards your next small steps, and eventually your overall goals. 

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

Society brainwashes us about overnight success stories and flashy accomplishments, where in reality, small wins are the biggest building block of your success and happiness in life. 

Our younger selves are often socially conditioned to to rank small or simple wins as not impactful or not as important as bigger wins. But the reality is that small wins matter even more than you’d actually think.

A daily routine of mine is journaling my gratitudes. But things got way more interesting when I added these journal entries with daily wins. Because these daily wins remind you of your daily progress and knowing that you’ve made progress will boost your confidence to take the next step towards your bigger goals. Studies have shown in research of organizations who have employees simply recording progress in some way helped them boost self-confidence and this upgraded confidence can be put to use toward future successes because capturing these small wins every day enhances a worker’s motivation. If you want more details on this you can Google Harvard study celebrating small wins. 

Earlier I mentioned feeling a sense of pride and joy when we record these wins. There is actually science behind this thought process too. When you accomplish something, it activates the reward center of our brains, the neurochemical dopamine is released and energizes us with feel-good emotions and helps us experience the feeling of being rewarded, and can hook you on wanting to achieve even more so that you can feel this emotion again. 

Celebrating small wins gives you clarity. So often we lose sight of our direction and why, but recording these small wins down will help you see that clarity again, what it is that you’re working towards and why you started in the first place. Success loves speed and success loves celebrations. 

So what are some small wins that are often overlooked?

• Learned something new.
• Tried something new.
• Completed everything according to your schedules.
• Stepped outside your comfort zone.
• Found an opportunity to be creative.
• Made fast decisions
• Trusted your intuition or followed your gut.
• Made all meetings today on time.
• Had a great idea.
• Hit inbox zero.
• Performed a random act of kindness.
• Completed self-care.
• Ate a nutritious meal.
• Read for 10 minutes.
• Didn’t hit snooze or woke up before the alarm clock.
• Practiced boundaries and said “no” to something you usually can’t refuse
• Decluttered your space.
• Spent time with family.
• Felt productive.
• Stuck to a routine.
• Avoided distractions or procrastination.
• Made your bed.
• Practiced mindfulness
• Got to the gym or got some exercise done at home.
• Asked for help when you needed it.
• Meditated or did breathworks
• Gained one extra follower on Social media

I challenge you to celebrate your wins right now on social, post on IG or elsewhere and tag me at @mslucyliu . 

Remember, nothing is too small to record down and celebrate and it’s not bragging if it’s the truth. Keep celebrating, and your wins will repeat and expand.

Cheers to your celebration and evolution.