Celebrate the Small Victories

Doing so will help you grow in two ways

Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash

I recently hit 100 followers on Medium and to them, I thank sincerely. I’m celebrating. I’d also like to thank all the publications that have put my work out there and all the Medium curators as well. While this may be nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of followers that someone like Benjamin Hardy, PhD has, every milestone is worth the celebration.

Celebrate the small victories — whether 100 followers, having published your first article, getting your first photography feature on an Instagram page, or whatever it may be. Celebrating the small victories helps you to grow in two very distinct and very direct ways.

1. Confidence

It helps your grow your confidence. Celebration isn’t something that’s reserved for the “I made it!” moment. Celebration should be something that encourages you to grow. It’s something that says “hey, look how far I’ve come” but on the tail end of that, unspoken, it states, “look how much further I’m going to go.” By celebrating a small victory and acknowledging that it is small, you simultaneously acknowledge that bigger things are going to come. And that is important.

By recognizing that your victory is small, but by celebrating it nonetheless, you look forward to future celebrations. You look forward to future successes and greater ones too. The psychology of positive self-affirmation is extremely powerful and by patting yourself on the back for something small, you allow yourself to grow confident in both yourself and the work you put out. Creating an expectation of a bigger victory down the road pushes you and creates a target destination that drives you to keep producing and keep improving.

2. Audience and Connections

Celebrating the small victories also helps your grow your audience and connections. It shows your gratitude to those who have supported you throughout your journey so far. By celebrating, you’re showing that you’re happy with how far you’ve come and that would not have been possible without the support you’ve gotten — whether that is from your audience or those who have championed your work.