Celebrate Small Wins Like a Parent
When you’re raising a human from scratch, everything is new. Holding a spoon, taking a step, babbling a word that almost sounds like something real—it all gets celebrated. And it should. That’s how kids learn what matters. They try, someone cheers, and their brain says: “Let’s do more of that.”
Parents don’t wait for perfection. They reward the attempt. The progress. The courage to try something hard.
Somewhere along the way, we stop doing that—for kids, and for ourselves. As adults, we don’t get clapped for showing up. No one is handing out gold stars when I get out of bed on time or skip the late-night scroll. But that doesn’t mean those things don’t count.
We still need encouragement—we now have to give it to ourselves. Because if we don’t, it’s easy to forget that progress is happening. We focus on what we haven’t done. We miss the little wins that are actually stacking up to make our lives better.
And I don’t mean treating myself like I won the lottery because I cooked dinner or finished a routine. I mean pausing to acknowledge it. A little “nice work” under my breath. A quick shimmy at my desk. A quiet “yes” when I follow through on something hard. I used to think that was silly—like I was babying myself. But sometimes adults need what children need: a little encouragement to keep going.
We don’t have to wait for the big goal to feel proud. The small wins are what get us there. And if we want to keep growing, we have to keep noticing them.
ACTION: Pick one small thing you followed through on today—something that took effort, even if it looked simple from the outside. Name it. Acknowledge it. Give yourself credit for showing up. That’s how we reinforce the path we want to keep walking.
