Celebrating the Small Wins

Adjusting Expectations

Each week starts off with so much unknown. Yes, we might have a bunch of meetings, appointments etc scheduled on our calendars. It might seem like every hour is accounted for in advance. But ultimately we have no way to know what those minutes will actually look like.

For example, I know my morning routine and you'd think that every morning is pretty much the same. However, there is always at least one external factor that switches things up. It might be the alarm clock getting unplugged or a lost shoe. Or it could be the truck slowly driving in front of me, on the one lane road. Sometimes these factors are just going to delay us, and there isn't anything we can do about them, while others could be prevented.

So I've come to kinda expect minor delays. I don't compare my daily timing to what the ideal time would be. I've come to accept the reality that things happen and its ok.

Preparing for Success

That said, I do take a few minutes each night to try to account for whatever we might need in the morning. Whether its food prep, clean clothing or setting that alarm, its just a few minutes which will hopefully prevent a lot of stress in the morning.

And when things do go smoothly, I smile. Yes, its mostly not in my hands, but I try my best and appreciate the fruit of my labor. When there are hiccups, I also try to smile, because I know that I did what I could and being able to accept the unexpected, is also a win. And that is just the start of my day.

Small Wins

There are so many times during the day, when I find myself classifying the situation. This was good, that was less pleasant. Its just a fleeting judgement and then I move on. However, recently, I caught myself.

Each accomplishment should be used to build ourselves. In order to build, we have to realize and acknowledge that we are accumulating accomplishments. This means that if something that we did was good, we need to celebrate it. If something doesn't feel like a win, we should take a few minutes to analyze why and re-frame it to a learning opportunity, so we still gain from it.

Fine, no need for a full force party when we finish leading a meeting, but we should pat ourselves on the back and note that we did it. And once we do something and celebrate it, next time, we can take it up a notch.

Optimizing

So what would a notch up from leading a meeting? Maybe review your communication before and after the meeting. Did you send an agenda before? Did you send a recap after? Was there a presentation and minutes that you shared with the attendees? Small details like that are icing on the cake and we all know how much more appetizing iced cakes look.

Remember though, you can only add the icing once you recognize that you have a solidly baked cake. You already put the effort into getting all the ingredients together, mixed them up and got them in the hot oven. You were on time to take the cake out and let it cool. Did you value each step? It wasn't just that you baked a cake, you also followed a full process and completed each step successfully!

Bringing it Back to Work

I have multiple spreadsheets that I set up to monitor the work that I manage. One of those spreadsheets has a tab per month and so in the beginning of each month, I need to create a new sheet.

Creating a new sheet is actually not a big deal at all, thanks to the Excel feature of copying an existing sheet. Now whats the win for me? I review the formulas that I wrote to make sure that they are still relevant for the coming month. Sometimes I forget what is a clean formula and what was entered manually. So when I see that the copied sheet is nearly 100% accurate without any changes, I feel satisfied in my work.

I enjoy seeing that the work that I did previously is still helping me today and yes, that's a win!

Maybe it doesn't sound so exciting to you. Try to find something in your work that builds on top of your previous work. It might not be a direct connection, like applying learnings from a previous project to the current one. It could be finishing off a conversation with a co-worker on a better note than usual.

Each and every one of us has small wins that we could and should be celebrating. They are the wins that happen throughout the ordinary day. Sometimes the biggest challenge is simply identifying and appreciating them. Wishing you all the best!