I am here to talk about small wins today. I recently received a newsletter that I have subscribed to in my mail box and read through it. It talked about celebrating small wins and it got me thinking. So, I decided to document my thoughts.
When I first started this blog back in March 2017, every single comment, every single like put me on cloud 9. Eventually, the enthusiasm of tracking my progress faded away. The same happened with my Instagram Page, I was thrilled to see my first follower who was a total stranger, who hadn’t been coerced into following the page (JK, none of my friends were pushed into it either)! But ever since I hit 50, and crossed 80, I haven’t thought too much about it. I guess I am waiting for it to reach 100!
Milestones: The happiness breaker
It’s this milestone-y way of thinking that doesn’t let us view progress as progress, just because it may not be tangible initially. Take exercise for example: One will not see results in a day or even a week, which makes us feel that we haven’t achieved anything, so we do not get our doze of motivation. But does that really mean you have made no progress? Of course not! Simply put, we live for instant gratification.
This attitude makes our happiness dependent on ‘external stimuli’ – on something happening, on some milestone being achieved. My mentor Dr. Daisaku Ikeda writes, “Where is happiness to be found? How can we become happy? Happiness is not a question of how you look to others. Rather it is a matter of what you yourself feel inside; it is a deep answering response in your life.“
What we feel inside matters the most
If what we feel inside matters the most, why do we have to put ourselves through a hard time just because the everyday progress we make is not as tangible now as it might be a few months later. As a budding social entrepreneur, the principle of compounding and delayed gratification is something I am still grappling with. Burning the midnight oil doesn’t bring milestone-y wins every day, but with slow, steady, everyday, consistent efforts – it does bring rewards.
But these visible rewards call for a lot of invisible energy and time investment, not just for a business, but for many other domains such as health, relationships, financial investment etc. Maggi is the only two-minute reward there is in life in terms of taste, not health!
Celebrate the little wins
Its a long road, so keep walking
Much more than your progress, celebrate your process. Celebrate the effort you put in, than the outcome you’re getting. Value the 1% you do everyday and don’t be ashamed of celebrating early. Your happiness is governed by you, and it shouldn’t be dependent on something happening or not.
I am trying to derive happiness from the efforts I put in, and believing that the results will be much more fruitful. Here’s what it does for me:
- Boosts confidence: It makes me feel happy about my abilities and strengthens my belief in myself.
- Lesser stress: By trying to focus on my efforts, I am worrying less about the outcomes but improving the quality of my inputs.
- Testing the idea of compounding: I am conducting a live experiment to test the impact of compounding, we’ll see where that goes.
- Patience: Definitely tests my patience, but feels good to not give in to self-sabotage, no one created a good life overnight.
Every drop is important in making an ocean, similarly, every day is important in making a good life. Don’t waste them waiting for the milestone days, celebrate and appreciate small wins everyday – even as small as waking up 5 minutes early. Trust me, it goes a long way.
Photo by Daniel K Cheung on Unsplash
Photo by Kevin Martin Jose on Unsplash
