Little Victories

In this episode we discuss the importance of taking time to acknowledge the little victories, and how they can help you stay on course to reaching your goals.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello there.

Welcome to the podcast.

Today we are talking about little victories,

Right Ben?

Yes.

So what's that all about?

Well,

It's something that you always have talked to me about.

Wanna?

Yeah.

I got the idea that we would maybe talk about this week because it's coming up on,

Right now it's three years that we've been doing this podcast.

Which I feel like is an accomplishment that we've had this thing going for this long.

In my previous life,

Three years was like my max.

I never had a job longer than three years.

I never really did anything longer than three years.

Yeah.

Well congratulations.

Thank you.

And this will be our last episode.

But uh.

.

.

I quit.

So coincidingly with that,

Dave had learned a cover song last week called Little Victories.

Little Victories.

Yeah,

So he did a cover of it and I was listening to it and I was thinking about the podcast and how that's something that you've always talked about.

Taking stock of the good things and the things that are happening and paying attention to the wins.

Yeah,

And it makes life so much more enjoyable.

We judge ourselves so harshly for the things that we do wrong,

But how many things are we doing right every day?

At least three I think.

Yeah,

Probably a lot more.

We're habitual beings so we don't pay attention to it a lot,

But all the little things that we're doing right,

If we stop putting attention to those things and becoming aware of them,

All of a sudden we start feeling better about ourselves.

We start feeling better about ourselves because of all the things we're doing right and it takes up more of our consciousness.

Our consciousness is the type of life that we live.

So if we're focused,

If consciously we're focused on the negative things all the time,

Then we're going to live a negative life because we're going to be walking around thinking and feeling negative things,

But if we're focused on the positive things,

Then we're going to live a more positive and joyful life because that's what we're going to be thinking about and putting our attention on.

It's kind of that simple,

And whatever we put our attention on expands.

So all of a sudden we're going to become more aware of the pleasant things and the good things and feel better about ourselves.

It starts off right there,

Right with what we're already doing and just plain giving ourselves credit for it.

We're not used to that in our society.

We're like,

Oh my God,

That was wonderful what you did.

The first thing we do is go,

Oh no,

No.

We just brush off the compliment like it's nothing and we shouldn't take that.

We shouldn't feel good about ourselves for the good things that we're doing because subconsciously it's that thought that we must think we're better than everybody else if we take credit for anything.

It just doesn't have to be that way.

We can actually love ourselves and be happy with things that we've done and things that we're doing and be proud of it and enjoy it and accept thanks for it.

Simple as that,

Just receiving thanks for things that we've done without going in a dysfunctional egoic,

Oh,

I'm better than everybody else.

We're so scared that people are going to think that we think highly of ourselves.

Because there's two ways to think highly of yourself.

I think we just touched on this recently actually or it might have been a book club.

We were talking about this subject and there's a big difference between,

I'm just awesome.

I'm awesome.

There's a big difference between that and going,

I'm awesome.

There's a big difference between those two things and just feeling like you have some self-pride and you're proud of yourself and that you are awesome.

That's a wonderful thing.

People don't take it wrong when you're talking about that.

When somebody's just sitting there going,

I'm awesome.

Sometimes they'll stop people in their tracks but they'll just be like,

What the heck?

Wow!

This person's really proud of themselves.

Do you think that that's negative?

I don't think there's anything more positive.

Do you think that other people perceive it as negative?

I do this all the time with my work.

It just depends on the energy in which you say stuff.

If I'm talking to people from a place of self-love,

Then people perceive it as self-love.

If I'm talking about myself or talking about something from a place of ego,

Then people take it as that.

People can pick up on energy a lot more than they give themselves credit for.

Every once in a while,

There's going to be somebody who's really feeling bad about themselves and the fact that you feel good about yourself is very threatening to them.

Sometimes they're going to get offended and take it the wrong way.

That's okay.

They can do that.

We're not responsible for other people's feelings.

It never serves us to play small to try to shrink down to somebody else's level so nobody gets offended.

That doesn't benefit you and it doesn't benefit the person you're trying to shrink down to.

You've also talked to me about being the positive influence through the example of openly believing in yourself,

Openly celebrating the victories,

Showing the positiveness of what you're doing.

If someone else is upset by your happiness,

If they're offended by your happiness,

Then maybe they'll realize that they're just not happy.

They might and they might not.

That's up to them.

That's their responsibility.

Playing small never benefits them.

If I play small and make sure I don't offend anybody,

How are they going to grow?

They'll never see the error in their ways.

They'll never realize they're not feeling good about themselves because everybody around them is playing so small that everybody stays small.

There's no possibility of them rising above.

Sometimes people might get offended and out of those people who get offended,

There's going to be a percentage that notice that and use it as a catalyst for growth.

There's other percentage of those people who won't and maybe they'll point the finger at you for the next 10 years going,

That dude thinks he's better than everybody.

Okay,

That's fine.

They have their right to their opinion.

They're not ready to see it.

We can't walk around.

We're never going to please everybody all the time,

Ever,

No matter what we do.

We might as well do what's healthy for us and for everybody else instead of doing what's unhealthy for everyone.

There's no benefit to that.

Living those victories and letting people see them,

There are people who see when they are shown and there are people who don't see even when they're shown.

If we see that living the victories is beneficial to us and to others and we show other people that,

There's going to be a percentage of people who see it and then there's going to be another percentage of people who don't.

They're just not capable at this time.

Maybe they will be down the road,

But they're not right now.

There's no benefit to holding back.

We went down the road of showing the victories to other people and it's even more profound for ourselves and our personal lives.

In our own lives,

We have to celebrate the small victories.

It really does set up a good playing field of how we look at ourselves.

Looking at ourselves in a positive light is gigantic.

The small victories can lead.

.

.

If I count 20 victories and I celebrate each one,

Even if it's just a moment of going,

Okay,

I did that.

Good for me.

Good.

Just 10 seconds of that.

If I do that 20 times and then all of a sudden I do something that isn't a victory,

I fail at something.

Then all of a sudden I go,

Well,

I had 20 victories and I failed at one.

Well,

Okay,

I understand.

That's going to happen and it's a lot easier to accept and move on from than when you're sitting there and you have 20 victories and you just push them aside.

You don't let yourself see them or celebrate them in any way.

Then all of a sudden you fail.

You go,

I failed.

I always fail.

No,

You don't always fail.

That's the only thing you ever put your attention to.

That's the only thing you ever let sink in is your failures.

So you think you're a failure.

If you put the attention to your small victories,

You'd see that you're not.

If you were a failure at everything,

Your life would look a lot worse than it does right now.

I can hear the people who are caught up in negativity right now going,

Oh,

No,

But I am a failure.

It's like,

Oh,

Come on.

That's just because you haven't started this work yet.

It's like anything else that's good for you.

You have to give it a shot.

You have to try before you make up your mind to stay stuck.

If you set off a block of time like I'm going to set up reminders on my phone and notes and tape them to my walls and my mirrors and in my car to keep reminding myself to celebrate the successes for one month,

You do that for one month and then make your decision.

Don't make your decision before you do it.

So that's prejudging.

That's judging before you have any evidence.

So try it for a month and then make your decision.

But you have to give it a shot.

Now,

When,

How important is it to find the victories?

So like,

If you're,

I was listening to something the other day and they were talking about how the weird thing about depression,

Or not the weird thing,

But the worst thing about depression maybe,

Is that when you're in that negative space,

Your brain also convinces you that you are now thinking clearly.

And that time before when you were happy,

You were naive and you were an idiot.

And now you're thinking clearly and no one else is,

You know.

So if you're in this really negative space and all around you,

You see just the bad stuff,

How important is it to seek out a little victory to celebrate?

To really like,

Try to find,

You know,

Or to create a,

This is something that I've heard a lot is to set yourself up for success,

To do something that you can easily achieve so that you can feel better about that,

You know,

And that will set you up for success because you've won something,

You know,

Whether that be like making your bed in the morning or.

.

.

Right,

Absolutely anything.

Yeah,

And it is important and it's,

You know,

When,

You know,

I've been in those places of deep depression in my life and I understand the thought processes and that's why,

You know,

The best thing to do when you're in that space is to experiment,

You know,

To,

I mean,

Like I don't,

You know,

A lot of people will just sit there and say,

Well,

You got to believe.

Well,

How?

Well,

Just believe.

Well,

You have to have hope.

Okay,

Where do I get it?

Well,

You just have to have it.

Like,

You know,

Those are the deep questions.

Those are the things that people struggle with when they're really swallowed up by that negative space and when you're in that negative space and that negative mindset,

You know,

Challenge God,

Challenge the universe,

Challenge spiritual law,

You know,

Run an experiment.

I mean,

What do you have to lose?

You're miserable.

You know,

That's the reality of this.

I don't give a crap how caught up you are in negativity.

You can get your brain wrapped around,

Well,

I don't have anything else to lose.

You know,

You can lean on that to motivate yourself.

I know because I've done it.

You know,

Every area of my life was completely bankrupt and I leaned on that fact,

The fact that it couldn't,

You know,

Just things were so bad and I was so hopeless that it didn't matter anymore.

So I might have,

You know,

What the heck?

I'll just try this.

I'll just try it and when it fails,

I'll,

You know,

Shove the middle finger up to God,

The universe and everyone in it,

You know,

And then I'll prove myself right and everybody can go to hell.

Honestly,

That was my motivation.

Now,

Is that healthy?

No,

It's not healthy,

But it helped me to find the motivation to test,

To push,

To try to look at things in a new way.

You know,

What I heard was that,

You know,

We'll gladly refund your misery.

You know,

If it doesn't work,

You get your misery back.

Don't worry,

You've got nothing to lose.

You are in a gigantic ball of misery.

Okay,

Well just experiment with this.

If it works,

Then wonderful,

Right?

You know,

You don't have your misery anymore.

If it doesn't work,

Then you're in the same place.

You haven't lost anything.

You know,

What's so scary about trying?

You know,

The only,

There's not trying doesn't give you anything.

It's just a cop-out.

It's just a cop-out to stay stuck in where you are.

You know,

So don't cop out.

If you're so sure that you are 100% right,

That you're a failure and that there is no hope,

Then prove it to me.

Prove it.

Do the things that I'm talking about.

Look at successes.

Set yourself up for success.

Set off a block of time and really earnestly put heartfelt effort towards it for a period of time.

And if it doesn't work,

You get your misery back.

If it does,

Wonderful.

Okay,

So here's my challenge of that.

What if you have a goal that you don't think that you can reach or whatever,

And you're miserable because of it,

Right?

And the thing that,

Like you said,

You have nothing to lose.

Trying doesn't lose anything,

Right?

If you try and you fail,

You're stuck in the exact same spot that you were.

But what if it is the hope that if you did try,

Things would change?

And the reason that you sabotage yourself every time you do try is because you want the excuse,

Yeah,

But if I tried,

It would happen.

If I tried,

I could do it.

So I have that hope of like,

One day I'm gonna try and I'm gonna do it.

But then if you try and you fail,

Oh,

This is never happening for me.

Nail in the coffin.

Well,

Right.

And that's just living in fear.

So it's,

You know,

What,

See,

That is good.

Because at least you're looking at things consciously.

You know,

You're sitting there going,

Oh,

No,

I'm sabotaging myself.

I am screwing my life up.

I'm choosing to shoot myself in the foot.

Right.

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

Then fine.

I mean,

You know,

Like,

If somebody came and said that to me,

I know I'm,

I would rather live in fear and misery,

Rather than try something and I'm fully conscious.

It's because,

You know,

Of just fear and I understand fear isn't an actual thing.

And,

You know,

I understand my situation,

And I'm unrealistically or I'm consciously sabotaging myself.

And that's my choice.

It's like,

Oh,

Okay,

Fine.

Not everybody is ready all the time to do what they're supposed to be doing.

And if they're not ready,

Then I don't really have anything to say.

You know,

You can stop listening to this podcast right now.

I mean,

If you don't want to reach towards happiness,

If you're not interested in overcoming,

If you know that you're wrecking your life and you are good with that,

Then I wouldn't listen to the rest of this podcast or anything else that I have to say.

You know,

I'm talking to people who are interested in changing the situation that they're in.

Okay,

So now we're going to pause for about five seconds for anybody who wants to stop listening.

Yeah.

Well,

I don't think they have any problem with just clicking me off right in the middle of a sentence.

All right.

Well,

If you're still here,

Congratulations.

Yeah.

That's a little victory.

That's a little victory.

Yeah.

There must be something inside of you that is at least interested in trying something different and you're not consciously just shooting yourself in the foot.

So good.

But you know,

An important part about the little victories too is that generally when we fail at something,

It's just because our goal is too large for us at that particular moment and this is something that people do all the time is they set up this gigantic goal and they can't figure out how to jump onto the top of the mountain so they don't even climb.

You know,

It's like they go,

Well,

You know,

This is going to take me 50 steps and I don't understand even how to take number 40.

So since I'm not going to get to 50,

Then why even start?

You know,

And it's that's just irrational thinking.

You know,

That's why the little victories are so important.

It's because when you take step one and two and three and four,

You literally become a different person.

You feel better about yourself.

You know,

You're more capable because you have victories behind you.

So you have a little more confidence in yourself.

So you've learned something from taking those steps.

You have more courage.

You know,

You literally change as you take each step.

So you know,

That's what the little victories are for.

You know,

I used to do that with personal training all the time.

You know,

People come to me in January,

You know,

And they go,

Okay,

I quit smoking and I'm going to lose 50 pounds and I'm changing my eating and I'm hitting the gym seven days a week and I stopped drinking and I'm getting a divorce.

It's like,

Oh,

Really?

Okay,

Well,

That's overwhelming.

You know,

Like how about just trying to have a snack in between meals and maybe going to the gym three days a week?

That might be enough change.

You know,

And then some people would try that and they'd go,

Oh,

You know,

I can't make it three times a week.

Okay,

What can you do?

Twice a week.

Okay,

Try it.

No,

I can't make it.

Okay,

How about once?

Well,

Yeah,

But you know,

The hour and a half in the gym is just killing me.

Okay,

How about 20 minutes once a week?

Can you do that?

You know,

Just do what you're capable of wherever you are.

There is no step that's too small ever.

You know,

I've had people put their sneakers by their door.

Pack a gym bag and put it in your car so whenever the mood strikes you,

You have your stuff with you.

You know,

Anything.

You can do anything that's,

There is no step too small.

So whenever you,

If you pack your gym clothes in a gym bag and put it in your car,

That's a victory.

You know,

Now all of a sudden you're feeling good about yourself and you're driving home and you're going,

I'm tired.

Then you look next to you and you see that gym bag and you're like,

Man,

I did pack that bag.

It is right there with me.

Alright,

I'll just stop in and just walk on a treadmill for 20 minutes.

For 10 minutes.

Okay,

So you go in,

You walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes.

Now all of a sudden you've got two victories.

Now all of a sudden you're feeling better about yourself and that little voice that's telling you that you're too tired to do it gets smaller and smaller and the voice that's telling you that you can do it gets larger and larger.

You know,

So it's just,

You know,

You got two dogs inside of you fighting a good dog and a bad dog.

Which one wins?

Whichever one you feed more.

Right.

I thought of an analogy for this with what you were just saying.

I bet it's a good one.

It's topical because of when we're recording this,

But when I think of long,

Like,

You know,

Taking small steps,

Acknowledging the small victories and not just shooting for the goal right away,

I immediately think of football because I learned a long time.

Because the Patriots won the Super Bowl last night.

Yes,

Which we're happy about,

But I'm sure not everybody.

But that big comeback,

Right,

28-3,

That is a,

It's one of those things,

And I thought about it while I was watching the game,

That like,

You can't just start throwing bombs.

You can't just shoot for the touchdown right away.

You have to get first downs.

And you have to,

And that's how football works in general.

Like most of the time you start on like the 20-25 yard line of your own thing and you have to go the full length of the field.

And you can't do it in one or two steps usually.

Sometimes that happens and that's awesome.

But,

You know,

There are literally.

.

.

And everybody gets excited about that.

Why do people get so excited about a long bomb?

Because it doesn't usually happen.

Yeah.

You know,

It's the same thing with life.

If all of a sudden we make this big leap forward,

It's exciting and it's fun and it's wonderful.

Why?

Because it doesn't usually happen.

That's not the norm.

And when you try,

It doesn't usually work.

Right.

You know?

Yeah,

You just have to wait.

You've got to stick to your game plan and then every once in a while something will open up that's a little larger than you expected.

And you take the shot every once in a while.

That's cool.

Yeah.

You know,

You can do that.

And if you miss your shot,

You go back to your game plan.

But in general,

You chip away at it.

I mean,

Football is a game that the object of the game normally is not to score more touchdowns which it is obviously.

But how you do that is you go ten yards so that you can go another ten yards.

Right.

And you shrink it down even more.

I was doing that last night.

When they came back and won after a 25-point deficit,

You know,

The largest in Super Bowl history by far,

The next one was a 10-point deficit.

I was thinking about it and I went like,

Okay,

So what did they need to do to do that?

What type of mindset did they have to have?

And they needed to stay in the moment which is something that we always talk about.

You know,

If they were like,

Oh,

We have to score 25 points,

I would have been overwhelmed.

If we need to score seven points,

They would have been overwhelmed.

But if they shrink down,

They go,

Okay,

What do I need to do on this play?

What is my job?

That was the Patriots' whole thing this year,

Do your job.

What is my job right now?

Right in this second,

What is my job?

My job is to block that person.

My job is to run to the left.

My job is to throw the ball.

To catch the ball.

You know,

And even like for a receiver,

Shrink it down more.

The job is not to catch the ball.

Your job is to line up properly.

If you don't do that,

Then you get a penalty.

Then your job is to not jump and wait until the ball is hiked.

Then your job is to take off running as fast as you can.

Then your job is to beat the defensive back.

Then your job is to look for the ball.

Then your job is to catch the ball.

Then your job is to,

You know,

Your job is constantly changing.

But you need to be focused on what you're doing at that moment.

It's the John Wooden thing that we always talk about.

You know,

Like learn how to tie your shoes the right way so that everything that you do,

You do the right way.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

You have to be present in what you're doing.

You know,

It's,

And I think Edelman's catch was a beautiful example of that.

You know,

Edelman goes up and all of a sudden the ball's up in the air,

You know,

And nobody thinks he can catch it.

But his job at that moment was to focus on that ball before it hit the ground.

And he did.

And he focused on it.

And somehow he made this miraculous catch that nobody thought he could have made.

You know,

Why?

Because he was doing his job.

His job in that exact second was to focus on that ball.

And he did.

And his hands just went where they needed to go because he was focused on that,

On his job.

You know,

And that's,

That if,

That's the difference.

That's why I was thinking,

You know,

Even though there was a part of me that went,

Oh my goodness,

You know,

This is a large deficit.

I don't know if they can come back.

There was that other part going,

Yeah,

But the Patriots are so well trained and they've been here so many times as veterans.

You know,

They have the experience to stay calm and stick to their game plan and their motto is to do their job.

If a team can do it,

Then a team like that would be the one that accomplishes this task.

Absolutely.

My broader point about the football metaphor is just that in football,

When you go 10 yards,

You get an acknowledgement of that victory by being allowed to go another 10 yards towards your goal.

Right.

So it's really important to look at those yard markers.

It does.

If you look at it,

Life gives us that automatically.

Yeah.

You know,

If we take a step forward,

We don't even have to acquire 10 yards.

We automatically get a first down every time we take a step.

You know,

Every time we put effort forth,

We automatically get unlimited tries to move forward again automatically.

And there's no step too small.

Right.

There's no step too small.

All right.

So yeah,

So that was a timely example of,

You know,

And a good breakdown of the steps.

So in your life,

You know,

Shrink down the steps.

You know,

There are no steps or victories that are too small.

It's just you're going to feel good if you do the right thing,

You know,

And if you allow yourself to.

So you know,

Just whatever your goal is,

If you're incapable or you think you're incapable of reaching it,

Shrink it down.

Shrink it down into bite sized pieces that you can give yourself a victory towards and then celebrate that victory.

Let that victory become part of you so you feel better about yourself.

And then,

You know,

Down the road,

The other thing too is if you celebrate these victories and then all of a sudden you come across the failure or maybe a step that you think you're uncertain about,

You can lean on all those victories and go,

Well,

I made it through all this stuff and I did all this stuff right.

So you know,

I'm bound to be able to take that next step.

So you know,

It can give you the courage to take that next step.

So I think that wraps it up for our small victories.

Yeah.

And if people want help fighting the small victories.

Yeah,

That's it.

That's the other piece is you have to be able to look at things differently.

When I was talking earlier about when I was stuck in that space and I was going to give it the honest try to get out and if it failed,

The heck with that,

I didn't depend on myself.

I mean,

I was blessed enough to know that my thinking was messed up.

Well,

I was blessed enough to know that I couldn't figure my way out.

So I got help outside of me for people to show me things in a different perspective and tell me different ways to try because how am I going to come up with healthy ways of doing things and looking at things?

All I knew was negativity.

So I couldn't do it on my own.

I needed somebody to walk me through that process.

So if you need somebody to walk you through that process,

I can do that.

You can find me at life-enhancement-services.

Com.

I do work by phone and Skype too.

So I'm getting a lot of out-of-state and even out-of-country listeners.

Know that I work by phone or Skype.

So it doesn't matter where you are in the world.

We can work together.

So I think that's going to do it.

All right.

Thanks,

Glenn.

And thanks for the great three years.

Yeah,

Thank you.

And Dave for the wonderful three years.

All right.

Take care.

Reviews

Beautiful! It's important to give myself credit for the work I do in order to gain victories. Doing the work is not always easy, but it is always worth it. I'm worth it. The gift is what I find in the journey to each victory. The discoveries about myself. As I view life through my gratitude lenses it feels fulfilling. It's enough.

I have been in a very negative and stressful mindset for about a week because I was allowing my depression to spiral. I love these guys anyway, but this particular episode was exactly what I needed to hear right now. Before this podcast even ended, I was smiling and nodding my head in acknowledgment. I feel tons better already and I feel like I can breathe again. 🙏🏻

Uplifting, inspiring, and insightful!! Thank you!!

Glenn’s best podcast by far. Hit the nail on the head! Make small realistic goals. Life is about celebrating the little accomplishments that can add up to one big achievement.

Thank you for the reminder of appreciating the small things. Sometimes they are easy to miss.

Great talk on the small victories. You lost me when the football talk kept going on and on....
🙂
Thank you!
🙏🏼💐🌺🐾

Good points. Hope the cold got better quickly. Thank you.😊