Celebrate Little Victories Every Day

By Fawn Weaver on Thursday, November 22, 2012

Have you been enjoying our 21 Days to a Happier You series?  Hopefully, you already gained something in the first 3 days as we chatted about nutrition and exercise.  There are only three things that impact your happiness: Relationship with self, relationship with others and relationship with God.  Each week, we’re spending 7 days focused on one of these reslatonship pivotal to your overall happiness and success in life.

We began with nutrition because in order to elevate your happiness and achieve your life’s dreams, your mind must be in tip top shape.  Poor nutrition prevents this from happening and can slow you down in your advancement toward greatness.  Exercise goes hand-in-hand with good nutrition to boost your mind and body’s ability to work at their highest level.

What is important to remember in all this talk about diet and nutrition is getting in shape or losing weight aren’t the most important reasons to make the decision to improve upon these things today.  It’s not just about the person looking back at you in the mirror -although that’s important as it can adversely impact your happiness- but about getting everything in alignment so you look and feel great inside and out.

There are few things more frustrating than setting a goal and coming up short.  Most women pledge at the beginning of every year to lose weight, get in better shape and become more active.  And around this time annually, women realize they’ve failed at that goal…once again. Discouragement sets in followed by disappointment.  I want to encourage you to do one thing today to avoid such a let down.

Set a goal daily and celebrate each small victory.  If you previously set a goal earlier this year and are yet to achieve it, begin again today.  And begin small.  We underestimate how powerful it is to achieve a goal that has been set; no matter how small.  Remember the saying, “By the inch it’s a cinch, by the mile it’s a trial?”  Set small goals and then celebrate your achievements.

Have you ever seen the smile on a child’s face when they’ve achieved something great?  It’s priceless.  Invite that childlike wonder into your own life.  In the US, today is Thanksgiving and we generally fill our plates to the brim with high calorie foods.  If this is what you usually do, don’t change that.  Enjoy this wonderful day with your family.  But maybe begin your day with something light and healthy knowing you’ll indulge later.  Grab a few family members and go on a brisk post-feast walk together.  These are both small goals that can become important victories be the end of the day.

Each day, make a decision to set one small goal you want to achieve and then knock it out of the park.  Write down the goal on a post it note and once you’ve achieved it, draw a happy face next to it and paste it in a journal or on a board to keep track.  Soon you’ll have dozens or hundreds of small goals achieved.  That’s huge.

Be grateful for the little victories.  Celebrate your success daily.  There’s nothing quite like laying your head down on the pillow at night and knowing you completed a goal that day.  So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, be thankful for all you’ve achieved this year, show yourself grace for those areas in which you’ve fallen short, and be grateful for the days ahead because the best is yet to come.

Until tomorrow…make it a great Thanksgiving!

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Fawn Weaver is the USA Today® and New York Times® bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 900,000 women in over 110 countries around the world. When she’s not blogging or working on her next project, she's happily doting over her husband of nearly eleven years, Keith.

 

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  • Cassie

    I love the idea of the post it note with one goal for the day! Then collecting them so you can see all the things you have achieved! My post it notes might say: No peanut butter today (I am a lover of it and eat way too much), Drink x water bottles today, do glute exercises, etc. When you only have one thing to accomplish I am sure it seems easier and gets you in the habit. Then later it seems easy and you can add another habit! great advice!

    • http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club

      OMGoodness, Cassie, you and I would be in trouble with a jar of peanut better nearby! I ate so much I stopped buying it by the jar and began purchasing the individual size ones (I think JIF makes them). Now, when I’m craving peanut butter, I just limit myself to one individual size PB. And yes, that is certainly worth celebrating! :)