After doing some introspection over the past week (mainly over the past few days driving back down to school) I came to the conclusion that I tend not give myself the proper credit for achieving the little things. This "credit" comes in many forms, but mainly just rewarding myself.
I think a lot of people – especially now and especially with those in my age group – feel a societal pressure to achieve large successes. That being said, we rarely give ourselves enough credit for our smaller successes. Often, we end up prioritizing our larger goals and because of our focus on the larger goals, we feel as though we cannot reward ourselves unless we hit that larger goal. For me at least, I’ve found this to be a Feedback Loop from Hell in that each time I reach a goal’s “checkpoint” (a.k.a. subgoal), I end up pushing myself to go further without first acknowledging that small victory. We thereby leaving our smaller goals by the wayside.
The downside to this poor habit is that the lack of rewards creates a lack of incentive moving forward. When you were in elementary school, you were highly likely encouraged to participate in certain activities which included counting candy in some form or fashion. The caveat would be that you could not have the candy until after you were done participating in said activity. This consequently created an incentive to participate in the activity.
Though this example provides an inadequate parallel, it's imperative we act in a similar fashion when going through our day-to-day. Realizing and appreciating our "small wins" is crucial to maintaining a consistent and level outlook.
Moving Forward
Stay tuned to hear what my research this week fields with regard to how to reframe your mindset so that you can appreciate the small successes in our life
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