Why You Should Celebrate the Small Victories
As entrepreneurs/business owners, we all have our eye on the prize. That one big target that drives you to get up every day. For some, it’s a number such as revenue targets, number of clients, profits, etc. For others, it’s a qualitative goal like being happy and content every day or world domination. The thing about having the ultimate goal in mind is that you have to make stops along the way, whether you like it or not. You won’t reach a billion dollars in revenue within the first month of operations, but perhaps there is a more realistic number that you can start out with.
The smaller prize isn’t any less important than the ultimate prize because you have to pass it along the way.
Here are four reasons you should celebrate the small victories on your way to world domination:
A sense of achievement goes a long way to boost morale and motivation. Meeting your ultimate goal is amazing, but what happens until then? It can take years to get to the end goal and you have to find a way to stay motivated along the way. This means setting milestones for yourself so you can both check your progress as well as celebrate that you are one step closer to your ultimate goal.
The path to your success will shape who you are as an organization or brand. How you deal with set-backs and leaps forward helps to determine a number of things in relation to your business. It will be showcased through your team as it grows. How they interact affects the output. It will also affect your audience’s perception of your brand. The other thing to remember is that once you are close to your ultimate goal, the path you took to get there is your company’s history. Better to mark it with a series of celebrations than a flat storyline.
Breaking overall goals into smaller milestones makes the journey seem more manageable. If you task someone with bringing on 100,000 users in 2 years, it seems like a lofty goal – plus, how do you get there? However, saying you want 12,500 new users per quarter is a little more manageable and measurable. That way, if the first milestone isn’t met, then you can tweak your approach for the second quarter.
It brings any team together. If you celebrate your milestones along the way, it means that you are having regular strategy discussions with your team. You will find that your team members are more invested in helping the company to succeed because they feel they are an important part of the discussion.
So if it’s so important to celebrate the small victories, then how do you get there? You should start out with your overall ultimate goal in mind and work backwards. It helps to work with your team to determine what milestones you want to hit and when.Here are a few things to keep in mind when setting your milestones:
Articulate them clearly. If your milestones are vague, how will you know when you have reached them?
Set quantitative goals. Quantitative is much easier to track than qualitative, which can be subjective.
Set dates and stick to them. Making excuses or ignoring the dates you have set out defeats the purpose of setting milestones.
Track your progress. This is the most important aspect of setting milestones. If a milestone isn’t met, figure out why and adjust your approach.
So what are you waiting for? It's time to celebrate!