Celebrate your successes — even the littlest ones!

If you’re like so many of us, pausing and actually celebrating your “wins” is probably not something you do on the regular. 

So, I’m offering you a suggestion to reconsider that choice. Here’s why:

Every time you conquer a small challenge – and notice that you did – it's like throwing a party in your brain. Seriously! 

The reason is because each small win triggers a release of feel-good chemicals like dopamine. This is a fabulous phenomenon to leverage because our brain wants us to repeat what feels good! 

So every time you recognize a behavior that moves you closer to a goal, you’re harnessing the power of your brain to create motivation, build momentum and keep you moving forward.

But, this doesn’t come naturally, so to fully reap the benefits, you need to be very intentional. 

You see, it’s easy to forget about the dozens of things we do well and wind up dwelling instead on that one mistake.

What’s happening is a result of our brain’s survival wiring. It’s constantly scanning for danger and prioritizing threats over everything else. 

Unfortunately, our still primitive brains see problems and mistakes as high risk.

The brain doesn’t differentiate what we face today from the mortal dangers – like running into a tiger – we faced as early humans.

It makes sense that it’s the problems and mistakes we notice most. 

That’s problematic because unless you take a moment to truly recognize yourself for the positive things, you’re likely to miss everything but the negative.

Each time you forget to acknowledge a win is truly a missed opportunity.

So, take a moment and give yourself some props for reaching the end of this email!