I practice finding small wins by looking for what has gone right, even the minor things that I once took for granted. Recently we welcomed a new puppy into our lives- right in the middle of January, where for weeks we’ve been in below freezing temperatures so you can just imagine how potty training is going. As many times as he’s not made it outside to go to the bathroom- the times that he has are part of the daily small wins I’m focusing on. Honestly his addition has been a great opportunity to practice this because he’s still learning- so there’s so much that he doesn’t understand yet- so each moment that he succeeds is a win.

Small wins are moments that are aligned with your current goals and desires in life. If you’re looking to create more time in your day, a small win could be waking up a bit earlier or the intentional time you kept off your phone. If you’re looking to include more nutrition in your diet, you small win could be the meal that had more variety, more protein, or less sugar in it; and so on.

If you are the kind of person who feels a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed, to be perfect, or to vigilantly protect yourself then somewhere along the way you may have started focusing on where you went wrong to subtly beat yourself up enough to “not do it again.”

We have to ask ourselves- has any of our beating ourselves up actually helped us do better?

For me, the amount of time I’ve spent feeling shame for past mistakes has only lead to me feeling more fearful, stressed, and embarrassed than happy and grateful.

Will set backs surely occur? Yes! We are not here to be perfect. That’s why the wins aren’t an ENTIRE month, week, or even DAY of perfection. They’re moments that fit with what we want. That’s finding small wins.

The best part about finding small wins is that you can begin right now. What’s are a few areas of your life that you have goals and desire to see a difference?

Imagine yourself being the coach or cheerleader of someone working on those things. What would you say are the little moments of things going right in each of those areas that you too could begin to focus?

If you’ve been feeling really down or hard on yourself lately – perhaps your small win becomes simply not beating yourself up. The next time things go wrong say, welp this is a moment I’m going to let go, and choose to think differently, and when you allow yourself to chalk it up to a mistake or just a bad moment that you can move on from- boom that’s a small win.

Once this starts feeling a bit better, perhaps you’ll be ready to create a larger list for yourself. I feel the full moon in particular is an excellent time energetically and astrologically to do this kind of work, but feel free to do this whenever feels best for you. Make a big list of everything you feel frustrated or stressed by in life. Then flip it upside down and think – in what ways are things going right in my life? Even if small ways. If you need to enlist help from a friend – that’s okay too! Heck, the fact that you’re trying is a small win!

Before you know it, I’m confident you’ll notice a shift in your life that really matters to you! You deserve to feel the power of positivity.

Check out our companion podcast episode where I share quite a bit more on the power of finding small wins, and more candid examples from within about my own weekly journey with this work! You can listen here below, or on Apple podcasts. If you’re looking for weekly self care encouragement, subscribe to the A Bit From Within podcast where new episodes are released each Tuesday!