When did we stop celebrating the small stuff?
As children, we celebrate everything.
A child manages to put their socks on by themselves for the first time and we’re delighted. It doesn’t even matter if the socks are backwards. They did it!
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, that changes.
We start deciding that achievements have to be a certain size before they count.
It’s only a small thing.
That’s just my job.
I should have done that anyway.
But why shouldn’t it count?
Big Wins, Small Wins
I celebrate wins.
That doesn’t mean I’m opening a bottle of champagne every time somebody pays an invoice. We’d have a problem if I did!
Celebrating can be as simple as messaging somebody to say, “I’ve done it!” It might be a happy dance, writing something down, wandering around the garden or having a cuddle with Leo.
And yes, if it’s a really big win, there might be champagne.
The size of the celebration doesn’t matter.
What matters is actually recognising that something went well.
Because a win doesn’t have one definition.
It changes depending on the person, the client, the business situation, your emotions and what’s happening in the rest of your life.
What Are You Not Celebrating?
Think about some of the things that happen in an ordinary working week.
Someone asks you for a 1:1.
A potential customer gives you buying signals.
Someone engages with something you’ve posted on social media.
A client recommends you.
A networking contact recommends you.
A customer pays you.
None of those necessarily mean you’ve won a new client there and then.
But they’re still wins.
That little notification telling you somebody has paid an invoice can give you a lovely hit of dopamine. Why shouldn’t you enjoy it?
And that conversation that didn’t result in a sale today might lead somewhere next week, next month or six months from now.
One of the difficulties when you’re self-employed is that sometimes you’re celebrating these things on your own. Someone who is employed might not understand why you’re excited because somebody has asked for a 1:1.
But you know what it could mean.
Celebrate it.
Sometimes the Win Is Headspace
Some of my wins probably sound even less exciting from the outside.
Getting my blogs scheduled ahead.
Reaching inbox zero.
Discovering a process that saves me time.
Finding a better way of doing something so I don’t have to keep remembering it.
They’re wins because they clear headspace.
An unfinished task doesn’t necessarily disappear when you stop actively thinking about it. It can sit there, loitering somewhere in your subconscious, waiting to remind you that you still haven’t done it.
Getting it finished, scheduled or into a process means I don’t have to carry it around in my head anymore.
Finding ways of planning for what you actually need can be an achievement in itself.
That’s worth celebrating.
Losing Something Can Be a Win Too
One of the things on my original list of wins was:
Sacking a client.
That might sound like an odd thing to celebrate.
But my business had changed. My target client had changed. The people I wanted to work with had changed.
That particular client no longer fitted.
Ending that relationship wasn’t a sign that my business was failing. It was part of growing my business, niching down and relieving some of the pressure I was putting on myself trying to meet client expectations that no longer fitted where I was going.
“Sometimes enough really is enough, and recognising that can be a win in itself.”
On the other side of that, winning a new client is absolutely something I’ll celebrate.
Yes, there’s the money.
And hopefully they’re somebody I’m really excited to work with.
But there’s something else I think we sometimes overlook:
They chose me.
Out of all the people they could have worked with, they decided that I was the person they wanted.
That’s worth a happy dance.
Your Wins Don’t Have to Be Business Wins
Business and life aren’t two completely separate boxes for me.
Business contacts become friends. Friends support businesses. Sometimes I can support a friend or colleague with something that helps them get a grant or move something forward.
That’s a win too.
And I’ve had a very recent reminder that celebrating what went well doesn’t mean pretending everything else was wonderful.
I’ve just come back from Sicily.
Three trips I really wanted to do were cancelled for reasons completely outside my control.
Was I disappointed?
Yes.
Properly disappointed about two of them.
I’m not going to pretend otherwise just so I can put a positive spin on it.
But that doesn’t cancel out the good bits either.
I Walked on Mount Etna!
That is definitely going on my wins list.
I walked around Mount Etna, including some narrow paths around the crater edges that pushed me well outside my comfort zone.
It was high.
Some of those paths were narrower than I would have liked.
And I did it.
The physical achievement was part of the win, but so was the experience itself.
The views were incredible.
It’s something I’ll probably never do again, which makes me even more pleased that I did it when I had the opportunity.
There were other lovely moments too.
The architecture. The scenery. Sitting colouring in the apartment garden, listening to the sounds around me with no technology.
Those things don’t make the cancelled trips less disappointing.
Both things can be true.
I can be disappointed about the things that didn’t happen and celebrate the things that did.
What If You Don’t Think You Have Any Wins?
This is where I want you to change the scale.
If you’re thinking, “That’s all very well, Rachael, but I haven’t done anything worth celebrating,” look back.
Where were you a year ago?
Three years ago?
Five years ago?
What’s different now?
Sometimes it’s only when you look backwards that you realise those realistic dreams and ambitions you were working towards have actually started to happen.
What have you learned? What have you changed? What have you got through?
And if you’re at a really low ebb, make the scale smaller still.
I’ve worked with people who didn’t think they’d achieved anything.
Then they started looking at what they’d actually done.
They got up.
They had a wash.
They cleaned their teeth.
They got dressed.
They had a conversation.
When life is difficult, those things can be achievements.
We happily celebrate the child who puts their socks on by themselves for the first time, even if they’re backwards.
Perhaps, as adults, we need to give ourselves permission to do the same.
Your win doesn’t need to impress anybody else.
It doesn’t have to make money.
It doesn’t have to be enormous.
And you certainly don’t need champagne every time.
Although sometimes…
Champagne is entirely appropriate. 🥂