There’s a saying that “what gets rewarded gets reinforced.”
My evening journaling ritual includes a section where I celebrate some of my wins from the day. They might be big achievements, although often they are small process steps. Celebrating is a way of reinforcing behaviors and actions that I want to reinforce.
Reflecting our cultural bias towards doing, the wins I choose to celebrate are often things I did. Examples may include showing up for my morning fitness practice and meditation, publishing a blog post, calling a friend, enrolling a new client.
Celebrating our small steps reinforces that we take action and helps us builds momentum.
And…
Progress is not only about doing. Sometimes our biggest wins are in what we didn’t do: not pushing through when we felt we were at a wall, not getting triggered by someone’s ignorant comment, not falling into the social media vortex.
I constantly remind myself to be on the lookout for these too.
If we want to stop ourselves from falling into old habits we must celebrate our refusal to jump at the trigger.
Sometimes the hardest work is in the undoing. We may not have anything to “show” for it, but it’s equally worth celebrating.
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