People often focus a lot on tremendous accomplishments. While that’s a beautiful thing to do, one must remember that big wins aren’t highly frequent. However, small successes occur with greater frequency. This means that if you only want to focus on big, obvious wins, you might miss out on all the small but beautiful victories you have under your belt.
It’s natural to have some trouble celebrating things that feel small to you. If you’d like to start, there are many ways to help yourself enjoy those victories. Here are ten ways to celebrate life’s small successes and three reasons you should!
10 Ways To Celebrate Life’s Small Successes
You deserve to take a moment now and then to pause and be proud of your accomplishments.
1.   Write Down Your Successes
Many people journal as a tool for reflection, expression, and progression. It’s also commonly used for writing down goals, aspects of gratitude, or memories from the day. Why not do the same for your successes, too?
Studies have shown that writing things down in handwriting is beneficial to memory and brain function. When you record your successes through writing, you engage your brain to remember better the win and the methods you used. You’ll also be giving your brain a nice boost in learning and reflecting on that small success! Writing down small successes also lets you:
- Look back on your accomplishments when you need inspiration or motivation.
- Keep track of your progress towards various goals.
- Learn and commemorate various lessons from your progress and victories.
2.   Share Your Successes With Others
People often don’t want to share their successes with others because they feel they are bragging. They may also feel ashamed about a minor victory, thinking it’s not worth sharing.
But that’s not true at all! Sharing your successes with the people around you can help you condition yourself for even more significant future victory. You surround yourself with positive people and fuel yourself with pride and support, making you more motivated to achieve even more! You can share things with:
- Friends
- Family
- A partner
- A support community
- Colleagues
- Social media
3.   Get Yourself A Small Gift
What better way to celebrate a small success than with a small gift? It’s like buying yourself a congratulatory present! It doesn’t have to be expensive or even very grand. Picking up a new clothing item, a lovely book, or going out for a yummy meal can all be good gifts for your success.
But you also can give yourself a small gift that isn’t shallow or material! For example, you might:
- Pamper yourself with a self-care night at home
- Spend a weekend watching a series you want to binge
- Sign up for a hobby group or class to further invest in yourself
- Put aside some money for retirement, savings, or emergency fund
4.   Reflect On Your Successes
A great, productive way to celebrate a small success is by reflecting on it. After all, what more amazing way is there to congratulate yourself than by showing yourself what you’ve learned?
Set some time aside to think about your accomplishment. You’ll gain some good, unique insight into your achievement and yourself and build confidence. Ask yourself questions to get yourself going, like:
- What skills did I gain from my efforts?
- How did I overcome the challenges I faced?
- What did I enjoy most about the journey here?
- What strengths of mine shone through?
- Did I handle things OK?
- What would I like to improve on next time?
5.   Be Grateful
Successful people are often grateful people. There’s a lot of positive thinking that is born from genuine appreciation. For each small success, don’t forget to celebrate through gratitude! You can be grateful for:
- Those who supported or encouraged you.
- Those who provided assistance, advice, or feedback.
- Your skills, capabilities, and talents that brought you here.
- The circumstances and privilege of your life.
If there are people you’d like to thank in more detail, why not write them a thoughtful thank you note? You can even give them a small gift or take them out for a drink or meal! The more gratitude you express, the happier your life outlook will be.
6.   Do Things That You Love
Sometimes, the most delightful way to celebrate a small success is simply by catering to yourself. Take some time to do the things that you love! When you do so, you’ll be refueling your mind, body, and energy. Taking a moment to cheer for your wins helps facilitate future victories by boosting motivation. You can do things like:
- Buying yourself a gift, as previously mentioned.
- Playing games, sports, or instruments.
- Take yourself out on a date.
- Entrenching yourself in time for a hobby.
- Going somewhere new.
- Spending time with loved ones.
7.   Let Yourself Get Excited
Adults are often looked down upon for expressing excitement in a big way. But remember what it was like to be a child who could be thrilled by even tiny wins? That childlike wonder keeps your heart young and your mind fresh! The longer you do while denying yourself this enthusiasm, the harder it’ll be to develop that trait again.
Why limit the depths of excitement and happiness? You can celebrate a small success by simply being happy about it. Jump up and down, cheer for yourself, and smile as wide as you like! Why hide the feelings you have when you can share them with the world and yourself?
8.   Take Time Off
There’s so much guilt in today’s hustle culture about taking time off for yourself. But it’s a great way to celebrate a small success! It allows you to recharge and refresh yourself to perform even better when you return.
Taking time off is a crucial factor in reducing symptoms of metabolic syndrome, including high stress levels, says research. So you’ll be doing both your mental and physical health a huge favor! There’s nothing wrong with taking a vacation day or two, whether you opt to travel or relax at home.
When you do not constantly focus on your big or small goals, you give your mind the chance to be free. The break is crucial in returning concentration and creativity to you when you return. So go ahead and treat yourself to a short holiday!
9.   Acknowledge Them
A small success is often overlooked. It’s hard to remember to acknowledge something that seems trivial. That’s why one of the most important things you should do to celebrate life’s small successes is to recognize that success.
Pat yourself on the back. Take note of what you’ve accomplished. Don’t downplay the things you’ve been able to do. You deserve to celebrate!
10. Shift Your Mind To The Positive
Human beings naturally tend to focus on negative things, even when a big or small success is present. As you bask in the glory of victory, it’s easy for your brain to start thinking about failures or ways you could have done better. That sort of reflection is acceptable, but it shouldn’t be your primary focus.
Shift your mind to positive things and consider all the little steps you took. Remember that this is a moment that you should be celebrating! By accepting your wins, no matter how flawed they are, you’re opening yourself up in a healthier way to future improvements.
3 Reasons Why You Should Celebrate Life’s Small Successes
1.   It Keeps The Success Cycle Going
The success cycle is an expert-proven phenomenon that illustrates how people can burn out and lose drive when a small success isn’t celebrated. The process works as follows:
- You perform an action that leads to a successful result. You feel good about yourself because you celebrate or acknowledge that success. This motivates you to perform more action for more results, and so on.
- You perform an action that leads to a successful result. You don’t celebrate or acknowledge the success, so you don’t get the fulfilling, rewarding feeling of success. Thus, you become tired and perform less action, leading to fewer results, and so on.
- You perform an action that leads to an unsuccessful result. You celebrate it as a small success, considering it a step of learning towards progress. This motivates you to perform more action for more positive results, and so on.
- You perform an action that leads to an unsuccessful result. You beat yourself up over it and don’t see the upside. So you become tired and perform less action, leading to fewer results, and so on.
That means the trick is to maintain a positive success cycle – and you can do that by celebrating life’s small successes!
2.   It Improves Confidence
When you celebrate a minor success, you boost your confidence by congratulating yourself for your capabilities and strengths. This confidence allows you to continue your trend of progress and forward momentum.
If you don’t believe you can do something, chances are you’ll be unable to do it. Focusing on small successes instead of so-called “failures” or obstacles prevents you from feeling powerless. It maintains confidence, so you don’t feel defeated. This allows you to face harder and harder challenges with high self-esteem continuously. That confidence also won’t be too overly dependent on big, evident success but any step taken towards small goals.
3.   It Makes You Happy
When you celebrate life’s small successes, you feel happy. And, to be honest, that happiness in itself is a pretty good reason to keep celebrating! Instead of focusing so much on seeking sources of joy, you can create it yourself by finding meaning in your work. Each success can bring you more purpose, which fuels your life satisfaction.
Happiness is a by-product of various factors in our lives. It’s also something you have to choose to have in your world. It doesn’t simply appear out of nowhere. Engaging fully in your life and celebrating each step helps create that by-product. Keep cherishing your progress, and you’ll find that this can be a catalyst for genuine happiness. That sort of thing is so hard to find!
Final Thoughts On Ways To Celebrate Life’s Small Successes And Why You Should
Life is full of small successes, and each one is worth noticing and celebrating. Even if the celebration is relatively small, what matters is that you’re proud of yourself and your progress!
