My friend told me a story of a baby shower where the host started the evening with an icebreaker game. She asked the group to cover the face of their watches and try to describe what it looked like.
Everyone covered up their watches and a woman volunteered to guess the face of her watch. She first guessed, “It has Roman numerals.” She quickly retracted and said, “No, it’s numbers. It has numbers.” Retracting once again, she says, “Lines, it has lines!” How many possible options could there be? Turns out, when she revealed the face of her watch, it was digital. There is no face.
First, how do you not remember you’re wearing a digital watch…?
Second, the metaphor.
She didn’t remember something that was an every day part of her life. A watch goes with you wherever you go, worn on your wrist and keeps track of your day. Yet, it went unnoticed.
We do the same in our lives. We ‘un-notice’ things. Maybe not a wristwatch, but we easily ‘un-notice’ daily moments that remind us to keep pursuing what we hope for.
An entire day will go by, and we can easily ‘un-notice’ the clues that help us reach our hopeful prize. We can get stuck trying to figure out why we’re still in the same place we were a year ago.
Instead, we entertain the exhausting question, “When will it change for me?”.
HOPE: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. – the dictionary
I’d like to propose an idea for your consideration.
I have a fervent principle I live by: never dismiss hope-filled moments.
I have a personal commitment to search for hope every single day. I start my day preparing myself for the unannounced hope and I end my day reflecting on the hope I experienced. It’s in hope that I’m reminded to keep chasing after my dream. Hope is my soft-spoken cheerleader saying, “put your efforts into what you hope for, every day.”
Why do I find this so effective? Because I get to live a life of hope. Not too shabby of a worst case scenario! Best case scenario? The desires of my heart have come to fruition. Sheesh, talk about a win-win.
[1] To ask, “When will it change for me?”, doesn’t seem like the best question to ponder on. It sounds wearisome.
[2] To ask, “What will I notice today that will strengthen my hope and keep me moving forward?” That, for me, sounds energizing.
I was speaking to a very dear friend of mine. He launched a business and has put two years of research and development into this venture: crunching numbers, working on gantt charts, building a great team, designing his scope of work and testing it against his competitors.
The one thing he forgot to take note of was how brilliantly he accomplished his goal. What he hoped for was coming true. Great!
“What were your wins this week?”
As we chatted, he realized that his daily wins were going unnoticed. Those discreet victories that infuse hope.
QUESTION: Do you notice the daily wins in your life as you continue to pursue what you hope for?
Are you cultivating your hope? Are you taking time to notice hope budding? Developing, growing? Are you impatient? Impatience creeps in because “it’s not happening” fast enough. It’s the deterrent to hope.
QUESTION: If I asked you to tell me the small win you experienced yesterday, how quickly could you share the positive impact it made?
We can appreciate a small win, but do we truly allow it to impact our lives and revel in its importance?
SUGGESTION: Writing a list of your small wins is partially what I’m suggesting. The other part, which I believe is most important, is taking time to savor them every day.
Before your day ends, write out the small win you experienced and then be present in it. Give notice to it.
Notice how simple it was.
Notice how effortless, welcoming and wonderfully normal it was.
Small wins, they’re just there, like a watch on your wrist.
Karen Thrall
Business Coach | Human Catalyst
*********************
MY DAILY SMALL WIN NOTEBOOK
“today, I notice you, my Small Win.”
Date:
Today’s Win:
3 Words That Describe Today’s Win:
Word #1:
Word #2:
Word #3:
Why was it important for me to experience this today?