That's Victory with a capital V. So much of our lives are made up of all those gray shades - raising kids, being good spouses, doing well at our jobs. They are things that we do better at some days, and worse on others. It's hard to point to them and say look, I succeeded. Because how do you measure success with those things? And I understand that this is what being an adult is - it's simply trying to do the best you can and learning from the things you don't do so well at, but damnit if I don't miss the days of black and white.
As a kid, it's easy. You get a definitive letter grade on your assignments. You get an exact time when you run the mile. You spell a word correctly or incorrectly. When you move to 5th grade, it means you will never have to go back to 4th grade ever again. But now? If you become a manager at your job, you might get fired and have to start from the bottom somewhere else. If I am a wonderful wife one day, I might still totally tick off my husband the next. And parenting, don't get me started on parenting. I think that's the grayest area in life I've ever encountered.
So I know all this is necessary and might even make us mature and wise as we try to navigate it all, but every now and then, I need a Victory - black and white, easy to read, easy to define. I think it's probably good for all our ego's to have one once in a while. I googled "how to get more victories in life" and came up mainly with hits abouts fitness, pro-life websites, and op-eds about "the little victories in life." Eh, not exactly what I'm looking for, but the most interesting article I found was in the Guardian and it was talking about small victories, but from the standpoint of what psychological research has to say about them. Turns out, problems that seem to big for us to solve become exactly that - problems that we think are unsolvable. The article hit on something I struggle with all the time - "perceiving challenges as huge made people seize up" - exactly! Changing my life, or heck even tackling the jungle that is our backyard - seems daunting, and therefore paralyzes me from taking action. "Want to change the world? Stop trying to change the world." If we just do one thing at a time, only think of one thing at a time, it empowers you with the quick win you need to keep going.
That's an exciting thought to me - just one thing helps keep me going? That's what counts? Well shoot, I weeded the backyard today. I wrote this blog post. I honestly can't say if there is a single other thing I will get done, but hey, maybe it's enough? Maybe not - I still want something I can point to that's a win or lose situation. Finishing another half marathon? Writing a novel in the spirit of nanowrimo? Or do I need to go back to school where I am doled out a letter grade at the end of each semester. Yikes, if I need that than I am in big trouble.
isn't it true, though? taking one step at a time makes you realize that things CAN be accomplished. and then you get to look back, see your progress, and recognize that you started waaaaaaaaaay back there, and now you're here. i mean, take the height ruler of a kid's growth for instance (i know it's cheesy), but really when we're kids, we look up and think, "oh, i'll never get to be that tall," but then when you make the mark and realize how much you've grown in the last month, 6 months, a year, you feel good, like reeeeally good..and it's not like you had much control over it. think about how good it feels when you actually DO have control over something and you make that mark of greater achievement....
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