Celebrate the Small Stuff

Celebrating the small victories in our lives, the small steps and successes will keep us motivated and moving toward our end goals. No one can be kinder to you than you, so start celebrating!

Transcript

Celebrating the Small Stuff

Hello Hello, This one is going to be so fun, and I think it’s fun, because it excites me to incorporate all this stuff in my life.  It's exciting to find little treasures, or concepts that add to my knowledge or beliefs that I can put in my toolbelt to use to build or reconstruct myself and my life, so let’s get this party started! 

I ran across this anonymous quote a few weeks ago, that really made me stop and think.  It said “A pat on the back is only a few inches from a kick in the butt”.  I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like I tend to fall into the kicking of the butt category a lot more than I do the pat on the back one,  at least in regards to my inner dialogue and my life sometimes.

So this week, I want to imagine what it might look like, if instead of kicking ourselves, which is so easy to do, we started celebrating all the small stuff in our lives. What if we became the cheerleaders (Ra Ra Ra, Sis Boom Ba!) instead of the opposing team’s kicker, always trying to keep us from winning the game of life. 

What if we first started celebrating the small steps.  I have embarked on yet another weight loss journey, but don’t worry, I’m taking all my good advice from episodes past, and this is going to be the  pièce de résistance, which if you don’t speak French, means The masterpiece; the most memorable accomplishment of one's career or lifetime.  Because this will have been a lifetime challenge. And I have to take the first step, and then the first step the next day and the first step the following day, and every single day, I have to take the tiny steps that will ensure my success.  

If I look at the big number I want to achieve at the end of my journey, It looks gigantic, even if the number itself isn’t that enormous, it feels impossible, but if I strive to lose ½ lb or even 1 lb per week that seems totally doable.  Breaking large goals down into smaller steps and then celebrating the accomplishment of those small goals will definitely keep me more motivated.  This concept is critical.  If we don’t acknowledge and celebrate small wins then we end up with less motivation and Motivation is what keeps us soldiering on. Celebrating the small steps taken toward our end goal sparks the reward center of our brains and releases certain chemicals that allow us to feel pride and happiness, making us want to continue to move forward taking even more steps toward that end goal.  

How do we reward the small steps and celebrate those victories? Only you can decide what drives you or makes you feel truly rewarded. But I can tell you that as soon as my scale reveals the exciting news that I’m down one pound, I’m treating myself to half a raspberry fritter from Kent’s my local bakery, ya, that may seem like a conflict of interest, but they’re so stinking good, and that will make me feel rewarded, trust me!  When I’m down 2 lbs. I’m going to buy myself a new pair of earrings, 3, a hot-tub date with a friend, 5 lbs is a new graphic t-shirt, 10 a new pair of jeans, and so forth and so on. When I reach my final goal, Doug is taking me on a four-day weekend campout to wherever I want to go, in the March of next year.  Be specific, make your list and put it somewhere you can see it, on the bathroom mirror, or inside your kitchen cupboard and rewards yourself!  You might even go the extra mile and put a green checkmark in the box next to it…. that’s such a good feeling, that’s what I have next to every single one of my to-do lists.  Or a flower sticker, use your imaginations here, all those glorified chore charts we made for our kids could be a very effective way to reward ourselves and celebrate every little step toward our goals.  
I’ve shared this before, but I love the old Weight Watcher’s motto:  If you have more days that you’re doing good, than not, you’re still moving forward.  I love that! 

Let’s use another example, say you’re trying to become more patient with your kids, or your spouse or your co-workers.  What first step could help you move toward feeling of increased patience?  Could it look like holding your tongue instead of commenting on every one of their whines, or their incessant complaining?  So, the first whole day you can hold your tongue, how can you reward yourself and celebrate the win of that step, or mark off that milestone?  Maybe a half-hour date with your favorite romance novel, your favorite, soda?  Take a second and look at your overall goals.  What small step would move you toward that goal, and how can you reward yourself thereby training your brain into creating more motivation to keep driving you? 

The small successes lead to the big ones, and they are worth celebrating!  
Alma 37:6 By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.

Homecoming is right around the corner, and it always make me think of football games in the fall, curled up in blankets losing your voice for your son and his team on the field, oh ya, that’s my past….When you look objectively at a football team there are probably a million small victories that the fans can’t see, that contriubute to the overall win. What about the cneter that has to dig down deep into his gut for the courage to but heads against the opposing defensive line with all he’s got, on every play.

Do we see that number four is playing through a lot of pain so as to not leave his teammates without a first string receiver, or do we only stand up and cheer when a touchdown or a field goal is made, or a great pass is caught. Remember, It takes every small success to culminate in the win of a football game. 

Compare that to second grade soccer which I coached for several years.  Second grade soccer looks a lot like training a puppy to sit, or potty training your toddler. “Sit Boy, No, sit!  We praise them for all their worth and give them a treat the second their little tails hit the ground, even if they only master the skill for 1 second flat.  And potty training?  Go there with me.  You want to go pee on the potty?  Good girl, oh you’re such a big girl!  She gets immense praise for even her desire and her interest, and the first time she does the deed, oh there are not only squeals of delight from every parent, but there are usually treats and phone calls to Grandma to brag about their accomplishment! 

Every small success leads to a bigger one.  So celebrate the small successes 
Oprah Winfrey said “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate”.

Celebrate every second,  Lifehack.org shared the following thought, in answer to the question, what is the secret to a successful habit?   “It’s all about understanding the importance of the present moment and taking the time to celebrate small wins as they come. We tend to take the present moment for granted – it seems insignificant, and we believe the little things we do in the moment aren’t changing us.
You must invest in the small things over a long period of time and understand that you only have the moment you are in. It is the combination of moments over time that achieve the big things”.
If we decide, for example that we want to learn a foreign language, one day of studying that language will not a French speaker make.  It takes more time than that.  Don’t forget the important stewardship we have over one of the greatest gifts, we’ve been given, the gift of time.  We need to treasure every second we have to achieve the goals we want to achieve and the time we have to create the life we want to live.    Celebrate the seconds, then minutes then hours you wait to grab that brownie, chances are, the craving may pass by then.  Celebrate every second, every day, every week and then year that you are more patient with others. 
Celebrate every second, every minute every hour that you can hang onto a smile that first feels forced and after practice becomes something that actually makes you feel better. Every second counts, every time you use time to your advantage, celebrate it.  They say time flies, but guess what?  You are the pilot, so celebrate every second. 

Celebrate the Script. 

Although celebrating, appreciating, and engaging in the written script, whether it be the scriptures or the classics, or anything that moves or improves you is a good thing, I want to bring your attention to a small thing that can improve exactly what we’re talking about here, celebrating the small things, and that is journaling. Some of the greatest minds in history were avid diarists, or those who recorded their lives.  

A few months ago I challenged everyone to keep a gratitude journal, I’m sure you’re all rocking that challenge, so why not add a list of the small successes, the seconds or the steps that you won every day before your bed-time prayers.  That’s something I’m going to add.  
LDS living featured an article by Lynnae Allred in May of 2016 titleed Surprising Health Benefits of Keeping a Journal.  One thing I loved was when she said:
“Keep a Journal of Awesomeness. Jot down 2-3 things you have accomplished during the last 24 hours. Doing so allows you to experience the pleasure of accomplishment twice and is a great way to boost self-esteem or recognize the gifts and talents you have been given.  Read over your journal of awesomeness when you feel discouraged or need a reminder of what you are capable of accomplishing as a child of God”.  Don’t you just love that!  

The Harvard Business Review featured an article in it’s leadership section called “The Power of Small Wins” in May of 2011 by Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, and it referred to a study of how everyday life inside business can influence a person’s performance.  They researched almost 12,000 diary entries from 238 employees across seven large companies and they found that capturing small wins every day enhances a worker’s motivation.  The research concluded that simply recording progress in some way helps to boost self-confidence and can be put toward future successes. 


If we effectively journal to record meaningful experiences or as a way to remember the small things that we may otherwise forget, we can begin to see why our wins over the adversary, our accomplishments towards goals, and the everyday lives we are living are without a doubt, worth celebrating!



Celebrating our stances may take a bit of explaining, but it all has to do with perspective, and perspective doesn’t start with an S, so it would throw this whole theme off,  don’t you think?
Every time we can change the way we look at something it broadens and deepens our perspective.  Every time we can change our stance from one of limited thinking to one that allows us to see another’s viewpoint we are opening our hearts and minds, and that is definitely worth celebrating.  

For example, we get to choose whether we see the cleaning or organization of one kitchen drawer as a win, when the rest of the kitchen is a mess, or not.  
We get to decide whether one mile toward our 5K training is an accomplishment, when we wanted to run 3.  Be kind to yourself!  Sometimes a shift in the stance we find ourselves in can make all the difference.  Are we leaning toward our goals or away from them.  We need to be honest with ourselves.  What stances have we chosen to take and how can changing our perspective serve us? 

Thomas Edison was the American businessman who invented the lightbulb, and it took him almost 10,000 attempts to get it right.  Most people would think, Wow, that’s a lot of failures, but in response to his critics, Edison was reported to say “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.  So basically, he turned his own failures into his successes by the way he looked at them.  It’s obvious that his positive perspective was a key to his success.


So I’m going to Celebrate the small stuff this week, will you join me? 

Can’t think of anything after all this material?  What can you complete in 2 minutes? In five?  Write it down with a check box and go get’er done!  I’ll be surprised if after you’ve put a check mark or a big old X in the box upon completion, you don’t feel pretty darn accomplished.  Reward yourself with a pat on the back, write it down in your journal of awesomeness.  Now choose something that is one step toward one of your existing goals. Write it down, and go show that task who is boss.  Another big check mark, another entry in your journal and a small personal cheer….it’s feeling great right, I bet it will feel even better as you review all the small wins of your day that point toward bigger successes in your futures,  as you look over the notes of your day.  Now isn’t this fun?

Let’s remember that there’s no one who can be nicer to you than you. So take some time to savor your triumphs, and celebrate the small steps, the small successes, the small seconds, scripts and stances…Just celebrate all the small stuff, ok?  

Groucho Marx said: “I’d like to pause for just a moment so that we can all celebrate the wonderfulness of….me”  Ooooh, Let’s give that a try shall we?