What Small Successes Can You Celebrate?
Curt Skene’s In2Win! Career Coaching Supplement.
The secret to success is to find ways to break things up into a series of small “easy wins”. First and foremost when you do this you create a winning mindset for yourself at a time when you need it most! You train yourself to look for the things that are going right versus always focusing on what is going wrong.
This shift in focus results in increased confidence, a more enjoyable career search process and you move swiftly towards your ultimate goal of working! Take a look at the key elements involved in your search and identify milestones worthy of celebration. You could even tie your success tracking into your weekly career search performance scorecard.
(See “Are you holding yourself Accountable?” ) Rewards don’t have to cost money; they can be as simple as giving yourself time off or cutting a deal with your spouse to have them do something special when you achieve a certain milestone. Meeting your weekly target for interviews and networking, completing blog articles, passing a course are all excellent reasons to celebrate your journey.
There is enough stress associated with a career search so find some creative ways to keep your spirits soaring. Make sure you celebrate your successes with others as their joy will inspire even more effort from you for the next week. You may even notice that your “small success” mindset is inspiring to others as they join in with their own small success efforts.
Do not wait to feel confident. Create small successes, and confidence will grow from the evidence.
Why I Wrote This Page
Because a series of small, controllable wins builds real momentum, not just mood, in a way one distant, enormous goal never does.
Huge goals often paralyze rather than motivate, precisely because they don’t feel achievable in the moment. Breaking your search into small wins changes what feels possible next, and each completed win makes the following one easier to believe in. This is well documented in how people sustain effort over long, uncertain stretches, momentum comes from a chain of small proofs, not from staring at the finish line.
This is also why celebrating small wins isn’t indulgent. It’s the mechanism that keeps you moving through a search with no guaranteed timeline.
Action Steps
- Identify three small, weekly milestones worth celebrating, a completed application, a strong call, a piece of positive feedback, and actually mark them.
- Tie your small wins to your weekly scorecard so progress stays visible even during a slow stretch.
- Share your wins with someone else. Celebrating in isolation carries less weight than having someone acknowledge it with you.
In2Win! Afterthought
Curt’s current observations and updated guidance will be added here.
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