Do you ever take time to congratulate yourself for the small stuff? Do you appreciate the “minor” achievements in your life?

Or do you write yourself off?

Despite losing my job this week, I’ve been making some progress towards some personal goals.

I’ve been writing daily, and drawing daily.

I’ve mapped out a bunch of places I can apply to instead of wallowing in self-pity.

I forgave myself for stress-eating.

These are all victories.

These are ALL things I wasn’t capable of doing this time last year.

Yet, I find myself brushing them off.

Oh, so what I mapped out a plan for employment. That’s what adults do.

Yeah, I filled a notebook with sketches. But I still don’t know graphic design, so does it even matter?

How You Think Can Harm You

In psychology, this type of defeatist thinking is known as “discounting the positive”.

People who fall victim to this cognitive trap often find themselves discrediting everything and anything, no matter how small or great the achievement.

Nothing is ever good enough.

Living in your mind starts to resemble time-spent time with an apathetic, snarky teenager.

If things come easy, they don’t matter.

If things don’t come easy, they still don’t matter, because they should come easy.

The problem with thinking like this is that it will constantly make you feel inadequate and unrewarded.

It will turn you into a perfectionist or you will start to avoid life. Either you will forever chase an unattainable goal, or you will lose hope and resort to idleness.

nothing but a downward spiral awaits you if you do not break this cycle of thinking.

Start to feel happier by breaking your habit of “discounting the positive” :

Start to become aware of when you discount your achievements. It’s hard to break a habit if you do not know when it occurs. Allow yourself to feel joy over the simplest victories and pleasures. Keep a gratitude list with you, and review it often. Start today. Make a list of 10 things you did today that were awesome. If you’re struggling to think of 10, I challenge you to come up with 20. The more you can find to celebrate, the better. If feeling good just because is too difficult for you, give yourself some justification as to why you SHOULD feel good instead of why you shouldn’t.

For instance, if you normally say something like this to yourself:

“I finished my assignment today, but it doesn’t matter because Mary finished her’s two weeks ago.”

Try something like the following that does not involve other people:

“I finished my assignment today, and that’s awesome because this morning I didn’t feel like doing it at all.”

Or maybe you sound more like this:

“I didn’t binge today, but who cares. I wasn’t stressed out so it’s no big deal.”

“I stuck to my meal plan today, but normal people do that.”

So try:

“I didn’t binge today. That’s a huge improvement. I used to binge

“I could have done nothing today, but I decided to stick with my meal plan. Yay me!”