Why Small Wins are a Powerful Way to Form Habits
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What are small wins?
Small wins are progress points on your way to your goal.
For example, say that your main goal is to get out of debt.
This can be a daunting and discouraging task because it involves a lot of moving parts. Focusing on small wins helps you break down a large goal into manageable chunks.
You create a series of small wins in debt reduction like:
Each of these milestones is part of a larger goal, but they're chunked down manageable steps. This makes it easier to stick to your plan.
(Side note: One small win you can try is to read and learn something new every day. A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest news from Wall St. to Silicon Valley. This newsletter is a 5-minute read that's informative, witty and FREE!)
What You Will Learn
Why Small Wins Help With Habit Development
Small wins help you feel like you're accomplishing something. If we focus too much on the bigger goals, we’ll feel like we will never get there. That’s why smaller wins are so important. They give us the motivation to keep on going where it snowballs into the development of the bigger goals.
Here are some examples of some small wins for daily habits.
Example #1: Get your dream job
For some people, it takes a long time to land that dream job.
Instead of focusing on this outcome, you'd create a series of small wins that move you towards this goal.
Here are a few habits you'd focus on to get your dream job:
Small wins can help you with finding a dream job. All you have to do is chunk down a large goal and build momentum as you complete each phase of the process.
Example #2: Achieving success in your business
Every entrepreneur has dreams of becoming successful. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen overnight. You need to work hard at this goal on a daily basis by setting effective daily goals that move your forward.
As an example, here are a few “small wins” that you should focus on to get ahead in starting your own business:
Once you get in the habit of celebrating these milestones, you will soon have a thriving business.
Example #3: Feeling better about your appearance
This could be considered a small goal but a goal no less.
If you want to feel better about yourself, some small wins could be:
If you get in the daily habit of taking care of yourself like doing your hair, putting nail polish on, ironing your clothes, polishing your shoes and putting money aside for the small wins, you will soon start to make small wins to feeling better about your appearance.
Small wins may seem impossible to get to at first. But once you reach that first one, the other ones will fall into place. You will become more motivated and wins will keep on coming.
Small wins break complex goals into more manageable pieces to handle. They are effective because they reduce stress and give you a daily action plan to follow. If you develop good daily habits, you’ll be eventually on your way to celebrate many small wins.
Finally, one small win you can try is to read and learn something new every day. A great tool to do this is to join over 1 million others and start your day with the latest news from Wall St. to Silicon Valley. This newsletter is a 5-minute read that's informative, witty and FREE.