Look how far you've come!
Celebrate your invisible wins, my friend.
Earlier today, I watched a March Plan With Me video on YouTube. I've lots of love for planners, journals, and whatnot, but I rarely keep up with them. That's why I live vicariously through other people's plan with me videos.
In this video, the creator started by reflecting on her February. Highlights, Challenges, Things that worked, Things that could've been better, etc. I almost considered planning with her for a few seconds — like actually taking out my journal and reflecting on my February (which seems to have gone by in a blink).
But I knew the first prompt itself would stump me. I can only pick out one highlight — turning a year older, and that's not even something I really consider a highlight.
Now, that's not because I don't have highlights from last month. If I actually sat to think about it, I'm sure I could remember how February was great for my mental, professional, and emotional well being. It'll take me a while, though, and knowing myself, I will quickly discount many things instead of accepting them as accomplishments or highlights. Something that I would celebrate for my friends or loved ones.
A wee bit hypocritical of me, isn't it?
To do or done?
I've got a to-do list the size of my arm and growing — much like you, I presume. But even if you're in control of your to-do list1, you've probably added an already-done task simply to cross off something on the list and get that momentum going.
We've all done it. That feeling of checking off a task is pure joy, something that needs to be bottled and sold as a scent.
Usually, once we've checked off a task, we tend to forget it and move on to the next. Now, while that makes sense pragmatically, it makes me wonder — how have we become so quick to forget all our little wins and accomplishments? Of course, these are wins that don't really matter in the long term — I'm sure doing my laundry before the hamper overflowed isn't something that'll land me on Forbes 30 under 30.
But then I think of the weeks when work stress and physical fatigue kept me from doing laundry on time. That's a small win that made my life a little better, right? So I shouldn't be so quick to discredit my efforts on it.
In this case, obviously, laundry is a metaphor for the accomplishments and successes we miss while we chase our big goals, the milestones on our path.
Whether it's a successful client presentation, completing the first draft of your book, or getting 10+ comments on your latest blog post, these are markers of your progress. It's always helpful to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate your them.
Think back to the first time you attended a meeting at your new job — full of nerves. Now, you're probably way more confident and know your value to the team. That change didn't happen overnight.
As humans, we tend to compare our growth with others. It's a way of life in our milestone-obsessed culture. A successful client presentation in your second year working feels lame when you see that your colleague managed to do it within their first six months.
But they probably didn't need to put in the amount of effort into Powerpoint and graphs and whatnot — maybe it came easier to them, that's why their timeline is different. You took your time, put in the effort, and managed to do it on your terms.
Epic Spreadsheet of Small Wins
Emma, a lovely writer friend of mine, recently posted about how she has a spreadsheet where she puts down her weekly wins. She blocks time on her calendar every Friday to note down what made her happy, satisfied, and proud that week.
"It's helping me celebrate all the small wins, contextualise what happened over the last 7 days, and — most importantly— stops me from missing the opportunity to celebrate myself."
Celebrating these small wins goes beyond just feeling good and building yourself up. Accomplishments activate the reward centre of our brains. We get some funky neurochemical dopamine (the feel good stuff), which can even encourage us to achieve more. Capturing your small wins (even if you don't want to celebrate doing laundry just yet) enhances your motivation and boosts self-confidence.
Treat yourself like a friend
Often, we don't give ourselves the same space to make mistakes, learn, and grow as we do for others. Think about it for a second — if your best friend were overworking and she told you that yesterday, she finally crossed off everything on her to-do list, you'd be like, "That's amazing! This is great progress!" And then, if she falters the next day, you'd encourage her by reminding her that she's done it once, she can do it again. Or that she did well yesterday, it's okay to take a break today. Whatever the situation calls for.
If it were you? You'd be a little proud and then promptly forget it once tomorrow rolls around. New day, new pressure. If you don't record and share that little win of yours, it's gonna disappear.
We need to make a conscious decision to honour our progress. Like Emma, I'm gonna make a weekly wins spreadsheet, so I have March's highlights ready to review when the time comes for the end-of-month reflection.
Most of us might not see the value in celebrating or noting down these small wins. After all, what does it matter that you did a thing once a week when you were supposed to do it for five days a week?
But that's precisely why it matters, I think. Doing it once a week is already one time more than last week (which I assume was zero) or even the same. Staying still is better than going backwards, right?
In a couple of weeks, you might be able to do that thing twice a week — that's when you're likely to forget how difficult it was to do it once a week, to begin with.
Allow yourself to be proud of yourself and all the progress you’ve made. Especially the progress that no one else can see." — Unknown
I always like the beginning of a month — it's like a mini reset button to help us make progress towards achieving our goals. Like me, you can use this to start recording your small wins and honour the progress you've made.
Celebrate how far you've come — even if you don't fully realize it, there's been immense growth in your life in both the smallest and biggest ways.
Perceptive Madness hit 250+ subscribers this past weekend! 🥳 I celebrated that + my birthday on Sunday and I’m grateful to be a year older, maybe even wiser.
Thank you to Iolanda who read my footnote in my last issue and wished me right on time on Sunday! 💜
Penny for your thoughts?
Tell me what you thought about this issue? Anon + takes 2 seconds, I promise.
Stuff to check out this week 💌
Misinformation runs rampant in our digital age. To keep up with updates about what's happening in Ukraine, here are some resources: English news updates and what you can do to help Ukraine and what you should definitely not do.
Forbes Ukraine's tech editor highlights "free & sovereign' Ukraine's contributions to our tech world. Two apps I'm using right now to type this — WhatsApp and Grammarly were developed by Ukrainians.
I've read a lot of books, but I remember few of them. Now, since I read fewer books (thanks to the lack of time in adulthood), I'm trying to retain more from each book I pick up.
Even the Devil needs to do some marketing every once in a while.
Got a pet? You can make them a playlist based on the music you love. Choose your pet animal, their characteristics, and voila, a playlist appears!
Finally, here's what I'm hoping for this new month:
That’s all for this week — thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this edition, please give it a like below! 💜
Are you even human?
This is lovely! Thank you for writing this.
Omg Nia!! Belated Happy Birthday!! Also, i love this post so so much! There's a section in my planner that has weekly reflections and under the things I accomplished header, i used to think about what I did that week and then think about how it was like the bare minimum i could do-surviving, doing something even if i didn't 100% feel like it etc- but in last year or so, I've started writing down "survived this week" and that's good enough for me! But I also think i should look past and see what I did to survive because that can't have been easy, right? But thank you so much for this post, it feels so nice to hear a friend tell you to be more proud of yourself 💜