Small Victories

Everyone has goals; things that they want to accomplish, but cannot for some reason or another. However, time after time as much as we want and need to accomplish these things, we often give up after a couple of weeks, days, or even just moments.  Stopping this trend is a way to excellence.  One way I have found to stop, or at least deter the trend from happening too often is celebrating the small victories.

I define "Small victories" as the tiny milestones you hit before hitting your overall goal.  For example, say you want an A in your history class.  Receiving an A on your first test would be a small victory. How you choose to celebrate the victory is up to you.  Sometimes, I choose to reward myself with high marks by buying something that I would otherwise I would find a little too crazy to buy regularly. (It doesn't have to be something expensive; one of my rewards is buying the more expensive pen at Wal-Mart for acing my Calculus test).  But it can really be anything, really: letting yourself watch a movie, telling your mother, doing a cartwheel.  Just being afraid to be proud of you for the small things often deters us from accomplishing our big things.

Lately, I have been working on increasing the documentation of my life and trying to increase my writing skills.  So, I have started writing a journal.  Every night, before bed, I try to write in my journal.  Sometimes, it is just a sentence and sometimes it is a few pages.  I started the journal on June 12th and every month, on the 12th I write a sentence in the journal congratulating myself.  It sounds so silly, but honestly I get very excited about writing that sentence every month.  It brightens my day and lets me know that I am accomplishing a goal.  

I think celebrating the small victories is important. As I once read on interest "People say motivation doesn't last.  Well neither does showering, that why recommend it daily."  So celebrate the little things and remember that it takes thousands of steps to run a marathon.