How important is a small win? Is it even a win? Does it seem significant? I don’t know, but I know small wins only have value if you fully acknowledge them, and trust me I have fully engaged in every single small win I have had over the last month. Whether that is being able to carry food out of the kitchen with no crutches, get in and out of the car myself or the 'simplest' rehab exercise its a task I have completed with pride, a smile on my face, and quite simply celebrated. Simple tasks that I never would have celebrated or documented before are getting fully appreciated.
As humans we tend to focus on the big goal, the outcome goal, which at times can seem so far away. The key to success, I believe, is realising that it won’t happen over night.
It’s been 1 month of rehab and 4 weeks of getting stronger each and every day. I can feel it, I can see it, I get told it. I am still a long long way from being back to full fitness but I’m on the way.
I’m not going to lie this is a lot harder than I imagined it being. Everything I want to do and achieve seems so far away. I’m on a strict rehab plan of what I can and cannot do. I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I know that if I keep working hard the light will appear and get brighter. If I follow the plan and be as committed to it as I am with everything else it will all be worth it.
Completing small goals equal big gains.
Maybe by the end of this I will be the strongest I have ever been, physically and mentally. Maybe that’s due to having to almost start at the beginning and build muscles I didn’t even think about before, become resilient with the seemingly simple rehab exercises that now can seem so hard. Mentally having to accept I’m on a journey that will be slow and tedious at times but it will be worth it. If I complete tasks and tick them off, it’s a small goal towards that bigger picture of being pain free, day to day and on the golf course.
My perspective has massively changed on my own achievements, what is a win and what should be celebrated. The internet and social media has a massive part to play in people inflating expectations and undermining people’s success. Do the number of ‘likes’ really equate to the ‘size of the success’? Does social media only seem to show a snapshot of success? In places, yes. It doesn’t always show everything else that goes on behind the scenes to get to that point; the small goals and gains. Is everything as perfect as it seems in the world of social media? Absolutely not. Small gains and goals aren’t celebrated the same; maybe the social media world has led us to think people ‘don’t care’ as it may seem so insignificant to them. If you care, that should be enough.
Maybe everyone should appreciate their achievements no matter how big or small they seem to someone else. This doesn’t mean posting on social media, celebrate with those close to you, those who understand how significant that achievement is to you. Give yourself more credit for it, feel even more motivated and slowly over time the small goals and wins build to give you the person you want to be and do the things you want to do. Of course small wins don’t change the world, but they do change you.
So completing what seems like the smallest task to someone else for me right now could feel like euphoria. I am very fortunate that come a few months, these current achievements will also feel so insignificant, but right now they are what keeps me going.
I for one will be thinking of this every time I can do something again for the first time; whether that’s be to bend over and tie my shoe lace, drive my car or hit a golf ball. A win is a win no matter how big or small.
When I’m with my physio or I speak to someone and they ask me how I am doing; I try to respond with something ‘new’ I have done. It’s clearly not new but it’s new in terms of its the first time I’ve done it since surgery. In a weeks time it will be forgotten about and it will be something else, but right now, let’s celebrate those small wins.
Rome wasn’t built in a day…