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Personal Lessons- 02
The Day I Started Collecting Small Victories
How celebrating tiny moments transformed my understanding of success
Last Thursday, my cousin Sahil called to tell me he’d finally learned to ride a motorcycle. He’s twenty— older than most when they master this milestone — but his excitement was infectious through the phone.
“I did three full rounds of the courtyard without falling!” he announced, breathless with pride.
Something about his joy stirred a memory I’d buried: the notebook I kept during my early college days, where I recorded what I called my “small victories.” Things like successfully explaining a complex engineering concept to a struggling classmate, or managing to cook dal without burning it in my dormitory’s tiny kitchen.
Listening to Sahil’s celebration, I realized how far I’d drifted from appreciating these modest triumphs. Somewhere along the way, I’d started measuring my days only against grand achievements — exam scores, internship offers, career milestones.
But that night, I decided to resume my small victories journal. And what I discovered there changed everything about how I see progress.
