Celebrate the Wins

Years ago, I was in a meeting with a colleague. I was run down, having been on the road every week for a couple of months on a new project. I had just canceled a flight so we could meet with a member of the staff, guaranteeing myself another night away from home.

As we sat in that room, I felt like the list of issues we were trying to deal with was going to bury me. In that moment, my friend said something that has stuck with me ever since: "Sometimes, when you've spent so much time looking up the mountain at how far you have to go, you need to remind yourself to look down and see how far you've come."

Many of the things we had been working on the last few months suddenly came back to me. Big things and small things. Things that may not have seemed like a big deal at the time, but were starting to add up. We had been making progress - a lot of it. Things were objectively better now than they had been just a few months before. With that, things seemed a bit more manageable…and I started up the mountain again.

The other night, my wife asked me what my best personal moment of 2023 was. I really had to think about it. My to-dos and goals for 2024 sprang to mind immediately. But my wins from 2023 were harder to think of. I remembered my friend's words - time to look down the mountain before starting up again.

As we strive to make our lives impactful, it's easy to get into the habit of only seeing what lies before us. To focus on the next step, and then put it behind us the second we've taken it. But all those steps add up to a lot of ground covered. And that's a big deal.

So my advice to all of us this year is to celebrate the wins. Big wins and small wins. Public wins and private wins. Let them be the fuel that propels you to even greater success and impact.

Jump Start

What was your biggest accomplishment in 2023?

Wishing all of you a blessed, happy, win-filled 2024.