Stacking up wins

My daughter has an extreme separation anxiety. Going to school in the morning can be a struggle. She would howl, fight, whimper and try to use every tool in her arsenal to avoid going to school.

We talked to a counsellor who asked us to appreciate even a small effort she makes. Encourage her and celebrate her wins. These may be as small as getting up on time, brushing her teeth on time, etc.

So we started doing it, celebrating each movement as a win and then giving it a high five. We were stacking up the wins, and guess what—the tantrums reduced substantially.

It made me think - even for us, from time to time, we need to lift me up. We need a point to reassure us that we are on the right path. We need to celebrate our wins. But more importantly, we need to stack up wins. Get the ball rolling. Winning is a habit; it is an emotion, and it is mental. If we believe we will win - we will. If we second guess ourselves, we set ourselves up for failure or reduce the probability of winning.

Perhaps that is why everybody says to pick up an MVP, and the consultants follow a MECE approach of dividing a large topic into smaller parts. Finish a part, get a win, aim higher and scale the next peak.

So next time you feel nothing is going your way - start celebrating small milestones and keep stacking the wins