Key to Success: Count Small Achievements and Celebrating Little Milestones

A lot of people (myself included) have big and wild dreams about what we want to achieve in life. As the saying goes, “you can’t swallow a giant in one sitting…” (Haha, why would you?)

This article’s purpose is helping you realise that any achievements and little milestones matter, and why we should be patient and celebrate the little things, rather than wait until we’ve reached the result we desired.

Have you ever looked at a plant and got impatient at the rate it was growing because you can’t actually see it change? Only to find that a week later, it suddenly bloomed and you wondered when it all happened? Remember that each day, it got a little longer, bigger or wider? Plants don’t grow a feet overnight, and neither will your achievements.

We may all want the easy way out, and that is to achieve success overnight but the reality of that happening is extremely slim. I, too, have thought that in the past, and honestly it did not lead me anywhere. I would not believe any person or website that says you will get rid of this problem or that you’ll be rich overnight, or you will do this and that in a week, because

Why is it so hard to see our achievements?

Because often, achievements progress over time and is slow. So slow that we may not even notice it. Just like we look at our parents our kids and we KNOW they’ve changed and gotten older when you compare photos, but we didn’t actually see that happening because we look at them every day. Our eyes often find it hard to notice small changes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use a little tactic to celebrate little successes.

For example, you own a website and you want to see it grow, here are ways you can track the little successes:

Your first comment, facebook like and subscriber
The first offer you get (advertisements, affiliates, etc) no matter how bad/good the actual offer is, treat it as a success because at least it means someone has noticed your website.
The first time you get pinned, tweeted or liked on facebook.
The first time someone bought your item.
Your first 50 comments/likes/subscribers, then 100, 200, etc. (Never believe you need 10,000 members to celebrate!)
Another example I will tell you is when my dad gave up smoking. He counted every single day as a success. He’d write in an email, Day 1 (and eventually got to Day 2000) and we would celebrate little milestones with a big meal over him not smoking for 100 days. In the beginning, every single day was a milestone.

As you can see, there are so many ways to count success. If you treat little things as big things, you will appreciate these achievements a lot more. If you expect to see big results in one sitting, you may just end up being disappointed.

What’s the real way to achieve big successes?

The real way, I believe, is to work hard on it, to never give up, no matter how hard it gets, and to remember that every little thing counts. If you can persist, you can definitely make it. Of course, you have to be doing something you love and is good at, because I personally believe it’s pointless to make someone be an artist when they’re really into math, and vice versa.

Remember that success is a journey, as much as life is. It’s not always about the ending, but what we learned during it.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim high, because that can be a huge motivator, but to achieve big, you need to recognise the smaller achievements and celebrate them, otherwise it will be so much easier to burn out.