Small Wins Count

I set myself big challenges every year, and I love them. They give me something to aim at, and I would recommend having something on the calendar that scares you slightly. But I want to be honest about something, because I think the big ones can give a misleading picture. The challenges that matter most are not always the skydives and the supercars. Very often they are the small, quiet ones that nobody else would even notice, and that nobody would think to congratulate you for.

Getting out of bed on a bad day. Making it to the end of the street and back when the end of the street felt a long way off. Managing a whole afternoon out without the worry taking over and spoiling it. Doing the thing you had been quietly dreading all week. These are real victories, every one of them, and they deserve to be counted just as much as the flashy ones. The flashy ones simply photograph better.

The trap, and I fall into it as much as anybody, is measuring yourself against other people, or worse, against the person you used to be. That road only ever leads to one place, which is feeling like you are falling short of a standard that is not fair and does not apply to you any more. The you from five years ago was not doing this on top of everything else. Comparing yourself to him is not honest arithmetic.

Measure against yesterday instead. That is the only comparison that tells you anything useful. If today you did one thing that was a little bit hard, one thing that took something out of you, that is a win. Write it down if it helps, because you will forget it by the evening and remember only what you did not manage.

So take a moment to notice your small wins. Add them up properly, over a week rather than a day. You are doing far better than you give yourself credit for. Most of us are.