5 Ways to Celebrate Small Victories

While learning how to celebrate small victories might at first sound trivial, it is one of the best strategies to achieve your long-term goals.

Some of our readers have very ambitious goals like:

• Learning how to motivate themselves every day
• Becoming financially independent
• Achieving their dream job

These goals can take years, even decades to accomplish. With long-term goals so far away, it is important to celebrate the little victories along the way.

The Importance of Celebrating Small Victories

You see Immediate Progress

BJ Fogg, Ph.D. and author of Tiny Habits studies human behavior. He has found that making small “microsteps” towards making immediate changes in your daily life leads to long-term goal attainment and happiness. Microsteps are as small as putting the phone away thirty minutes before bed or taking the time to sit down when you eat. These actions allow you to immediately implement change in your life which helps you see the value of making positive changes.

You are more Motivated

In a study, researchers analyzed nearly 12,000 diary entries from 238 employees across seven companies. The researchers found that capturing small wins every day enhances a worker’s motivation. The act of simply writing progress in some way helps boost self-confidence and that works towards future success.

More Creative Ideas

Teresa Amabile, a Professor who studies Entrepreneurial Management, found in her research that small wins give people a boost emotionally. Workers begin to feel more positive about themselves and what they are doing. When people are more positive, they are more likely to generate creative ideas.

How to Celebrate Small Victories

Learning to celebrate small victories can add that emotional boost that we need to get to those long-term goals. Plus, they make the multi-month or even multi-year journey towards the objective a lot more fun. To celebrate small victories try the below strategies!

Write Them Down

Like the employees in the research study, write down your small victories each night in your journal. Developing the habit of writing down your accomplishments will help you remind yourself of them, experience the joy of that accomplishment, and also trains you to look for them every day.

Learn how to develop healthy habits with this guide!

Share Your Success with someone

By sharing your success with people, you are more likely to enjoy the victory because people are social beings. Celebrating your small victories with others helps you feel like you are making progress and lets you get validation and support from someone else.

Practice Self-compassion

Even with little wins, short-term goals, and long-term goals, you can still fall short. Practice self-compassion in these times and assess where you went wrong. Reflect on how you will try again for your goal and approach it in a different, more productive way!

Build in the Occasional Rewards

Also, sometimes you have been good at hitting your goals. It might be waking up at the crack of dawn to work on your blog before hitting your full-time job for three straight weeks. However, you know it’s starting to take a little toll on you, and you’re getting tired. Take that Friday morning off, sleep in, and order a fun breakfast!

Remind yourself to treat yourself every so often too!

Practice Savoring

When you have just accomplished a small victory, take ten seconds to savor the experience. See how you feel and the positive emotions you are feeling. By taking the time to be in the moment, you extend out the positive feelings which can motivate you for days to come.

Main Take-Aways

• Small victories provide you immediate gratification, motivation, and increased creativity along your way to achieving your long-term goals.
• Recognizing the importance of learning to celebrate small victories helps you realize you need to build some into your daily life.
• Fortunately, there are multiple strategies for celebrating small victories!

Action items

For the next seven days, make a point to celebrate your small wins. Try a different strategy each day and find one that works for you.