Life is a game, and I have discovered a secret strategy. Over time, people have found ways to optimise their efforts, such as diet plans, effective study methods, and faster routes to work. Today, let me add another practice to this list.
In our society, we tend to gravitate towards an age-old stencil and begin filling it in immediately. This gravitational force may be one of the following: our parents, financial situations, or the ever-present grapevine. The stencil, crafted carefully in rigid plastic, prescribes the same milestones to all, and anything less than achieving that feels inadequate.
Society has a narrow perspective on people’s lives, highlighting only the aspects they choose to emphasise and disregarding the rest. Drinking eight glasses of water a day goes unnoticed while a promotion is celebrated. This helps advance the idea that anything below the standards that other people declare is not worthy of appreciation.
In an ideal world, that system would have worked too, but we often overlook the fact that not all people are Elon Musk; some are just Hamza and Aisha. If we impose the same stencil on people like them, crumbling under its pressure will be inevitable, leading to frustration, burnout, and doubts about one’s self-worth. Only fixating on the wins that pop up on society’s radar will provide temporary boosts — like fireworks — but then the show halts, leaving us wondering when we will feel that high again.
To combat the demotivation that is sure to follow in the aforementioned scenario, we must be consistent in stencilling in the minor achievements in life, the ‘small wins’, instead of just the big ones, because society won’t validate them. My stance is supported by the concept of the dopamine loop, a phenomenon occurring in the human body when the brain counts something as a win to release dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter, a ‘pleasure molecule’ that causes elation. This feeling gets the brain ‘hooked’, and so, it encourages the body to do better and achieve euphoria once more, essentially building a cycle over time and acting as an in-built motivation mechanism.
Reinforcing this theory are the wise words of Admiral McRaven: “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” At first thought, the relation between the heroic feat and the meagre task seems nonsensical, but in actuality, it stands as a metaphor for consistency. Small wins that are habitual gradually build momentum and get the ball rolling, so every venture is taken in stride.
The realisation of these little joys also assumes the role of a helmet when a biker inevitably does fall off his bike; the dopamine loop must take an occasional hit, too. In such times, the small wins attempt to balance the failures, reducing their effects of futility and demoralisation, and delivering the confidence to keep going.
The big wins like graduating or buying a house are few and far between, and in order to function at optimum capability, celebrating just what society supports is not enough. Kristin Neff, in ‘Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself’, explained this point far better than I ever could: “Try to feel compassion for how difficult it is to be an imperfect human being in this extremely competitive society of ours.”
With the above advice in mind, we must commemorate the small wins that give way to the big ones; the ones that actually shape our lives and define our paths and personalities. In our busy lives, ways to incorporate this are undemanding if we reward ourselves with a guilt-free nap or a treat after responding to a challenging email, maybe keep a journal every time we exercise, even just for ten minutes, and this can be a mental note too. Moreover, a good way to acknowledge progress is to tell someone supportively about reading a chapter of a book or learning a new phrase. This approach will set you on one path to success without additional stress, sprinkling self-improvement and poise as a bonus.
As we part ways, we must remember that our value is not determined by the rare qualities society recognises but by how we thrive with the circumstances we face each day, even in silence.