Creating Small Wins

How do you eat an elephant?  One small bit at a time.  Just like eating an elephant, tackling big health and wellness goals can be approached the same way by creating small wins.  When attempting to achieve any health and fitness goal most people want to get it down ASAP.  The unfortunate thing, with this approach, is that unrealistic plans have to be set.  After not accomplishing the unrealistic plan the first week, doubt and negative self talk can possibly begin.  Repeat this process over the next week or two and all of a sudden the plan has gone out of the window.  If on the other hand a realistic plan had been set up.  You have achieved your plan week in week out, you have created small wins and you feel great!  So how does creating small wins work in your favour?

What are Small Wins?

Small means of limited size, not big, little.   And Wins mean to be successful.  So in essence small wins are little successes.  Why do small wins seem to add up as well as they do?

Small wins produce results because they are the beginning of creating new successful habits.  They builds a person’s self efficacy.  Self efficacy is the extent or strength of one’s belief in one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals.  This in turn builds confidence and reinforces the success created by the small wins.  Each small win provides a building block for the next win and preserves gains, making it harder to go backwards.

How to create small wins

Now it doesn’t take that much to start creating small wins.  Sometimes it just takes being honest with yourself and your plan.

Get a Coach.  You are probably thinking but I’m not an athlete.  You do not have to be an athlete to have a coach.  Successful business people and entrepreneurs have coaches.  Coaching will greatly increase your ability to succeed.

Is your plan realistic?  This is the first thing your should ask yourself.  If not, then back to the drawing board and make adjustments until it is.  A realistic plan might mean it will take a little bit longer to achieve your goal but at least you will get there.

Reward yourself along the way.  Now I’m not talking about massive goals.  Remember small wins = small rewards.  Find something small that will make you feel even better about achieving your goal.  It could be something as little as an extra small block of chocolate that week.

Small wins produce results because they actively make people feel like winners.  How have you used small wins to achieve your goal?  How did you reward yourself along the way?