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I bet you can be hard on yourself at times. It is crucial that no matter how small the breakthrough, lesson learned, or win, you need to acknowledge it as another step along your journey. These micro acknowledgements will build up over time, but you must record them, so you do not forget.
Exercise 1:
Write down some small wins, breakthroughs or lessons learnt in the past week.
Exercise 2:
Write down some small wins, breakthroughs or lessons learnt in the past month.
Now you have created your recent win list from the last week and month, it is essential these wins get the acknowledgement they deserve.
Here is a daily exercise where you write down at least one win a day.
Exercise 3: Daily Wins Book. For this exercise, you will need a notebook. I call mine, my daily wins book, but use a name which feels right for you. The idea behind this is that every day you record at least one win, no matter how small. There will be days where you feel you have not achieved anything, but maybe that day has helped you learn something either about yourself or a current challenge which will help you in the future. Learning something new is a definite win. A quote I love about this is: “Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.” John C. Maxwell Other times the win might be that you have rested your body through some injury, but that is what your body needs at this time, and you are wise enough to heed your body’s request. No matter what the day throws at you, there can always be a win somewhere in there, and sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to find it. As mentioned before, enter a win for each day of the week. Then at the end of the week, review them and write down what you have learnt about yourself and how you feel when reading those wins back. It is not important if these are small wins, as that is mainly the point. Building up plenty of small wins consistently over time, to help you realise you can have at least one success a day even on your worst days. Over time this will train your mind to seek out wins automatically and thereby building your confidence. At the end of each month, review your weekly summary notes and write down what you have learnt about yourself and how that makes you feel. You always need to be training yourself to reflect on your wins. This exercise is all about establishing both the habit and to train your brain to seek out the wins of each day, week, month and year.
In various ways, you have started to appreciate your successes and build on them. By doing that, you are also building up your confidence. But do not get stuck being confident in your comfort zone. You need to stretch your abilities; otherwise, you will not grow as a person.
I have found that over time acknowledging all my little wins and especially writing them down, gives me a real sense of achievement. I know like many other people I am guilty of glossing over any small and sometimes large achievements.
Over the years, I have written down my small wins, including recording them on apps. Most successfully for me when I was using a running app on my phone. Seeing the miles increase gave me a real sense of achievement over time and a belief in myself that I was capable of doing more. You could even have it linked to your Facebook account, while you were on your run, you would hear a cheer if people liked your post, which was a real boost.
At the end of the run, the app would have a trainer speak and congratulate you on how you had done. Especially true if you had broken a personal best time or distance, which made me want to up my game. If you are into your technology, it may be worth investing in an app to help you track your small wins, such as a habit tracking app.
When it comes to acknowledging where I fall short, then I could be a master of that. That is why it is essential to embrace all your wins in life. Ever heard the saying ‘bad news sells’? Well, your brain is pre-programmed to look for the negative in life because, in the distant past, it meant danger and was a warning sign.
It’s easy for you to take negative things others say to you to heart. In the past, this could have been a survival tactic, as it was essential to fit in with your tribe as being cast out from the tribe would almost certainly have been a death sentence. Humans also seem predisposed to seeing the worst in ourselves too.
Reprogramming yourself to celebrate even your smallest wins can be a significant confidence boost, especially if you build this into a long-term habit.
This is an excerpt from my book: TAME YOUR INNER CRITIC, which is available on the link below:
Direct from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08NJXYC2L/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_.fEZFbGJPX3P4
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