Are you honoring small victories? If not, you may be passing up valuable chances to boost your confidence and motivation.
Motivation is a discipline, and celebration is an important part of it.
We are not wired to celebrate frequently, but experts in neurology and psychology concur that celebrating both large and small victories can wire us for compounding success.
An Ancient Mind in a Modern Universe
In his work “Hardwiring Happiness,” Rick Hanson, Ph.D., discusses our brains’ negativity bias.
The stakes were very high in our dangerous evolutionary environment, and ignoring negative input was a matter of life and death.
Our modern environment has significantly reduced the stakes, but our brains are still wired to hyper-focus on negative information.
Negative fixation is a hardwired habit that needs constant and focused effort to break.
But if we can, there is a rich source of inspiration ready for us. Celebration is one strategy for shifting our focus to the good.
Discover the Motivational Chemistry
If you’re sincere about achieving your goals, you can make your biochemistry work for you rather than against you.
Dopamine is released when we erroneously think we are on the right path, claims eminent neurologist Dr. Andrew Huberman.
Celebrations, no matter how tiny, release dopamine and associate victory with accomplishment, strengthening and creating new pathways that lead us to desire more victories.
This dopamine release boosts neuroplasticity, making it easier to develop habits.
But, like success in the gym, motivation will fade unless we nourish these new associations with consistent effort.
How to Get Unstuck
No path is complete without obstacles, distractions, and dry periods of motivation.
The majority of our lives do not take a straight path to achievement.
Because it is such a challenging route, it is inevitable that one will lose motivation along the way.
But when our motivation begins to wane, what steps can we take to restart the process?
The authors of “ADHD and the Focused Mind,” Drs. Benjamin and Sarah Cheyette, assert that we can break the cycle of failure.
We can gain the confidence to take on more difficult objectives if we acknowledge our relatively insignificant victories along the way.
If you’re completely stuck, picture your smallest victories building momentum like a snowball rolling down a mountain.
You can’t hold your breath indefinitely.
Even if you manage to escape all obstacles, the road to your loftiest ambitions is like a long desert trek.
It’s simple to believe that you’ll celebrate when you’ve ‘arrived.’
Any daunting task can be broken down into smaller tasks, so there’s no need to wait until the conclusion to celebrate.
We need something to keep us going between major wins, so celebrate the small ones to keep the dopamine flowing on your path to success.
Ignore the External Rewards
It’s not just about getting things done and reaping the outward benefits. Success changes our self-esteem, and this inner assurance is a reward in and of itself.
External rewards, according to Doctors Benjamin and Sarah Cheyette, come and go, but the feelings you get from your victories create a powerful and lasting foundation of confidence.
For example, while your grade school athletic victories may seem insignificant now, the confidence you gained is still a part of who you are today, particularly if you celebrated those victories.
I encourage you to take a victory lap now that you understand some of the psychology and biochemistry of celebration.
You’ve just discovered something new that could help you achieve your most ambitious objectives.
Take a moment to celebrate the small things the next time you’re stuck or searching for an edge.
Your body is keeping track when honoring small victories.
