Little Wins

347 – December 13

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.”—Thomas J. Peters

My mother often got nervous if I got excited about something. I remember once having met a nice young man and hoping that he would call. He did. After I hung up the phone, I danced into the living room and crowed, “Steven asked me out—we have a date for tomorrow night! I’m so happy!” Mother visibly cringed and said, “Now, honey, don’t get your hopes up.”

Ouch! This really put a damper on my mood. She was afraid for me to expect or want anything for fear it might not turn out the way I wanted and then I’d be disappointed. But I was just happy over the little win—I wanted him to call and he did. I wanted him to ask me out and he did. I wanted to celebrate the wins I got—I didn’t know what was going to happen on the date. Maybe it would be a win and maybe it wouldn’t. That took away nothing from the win today.

Some people never want to get excited so that they won’t get depressed if it doesn’t work out. But the trap they set up for themselves is that they talk themselves out of feeling anything other than caution. When we talk ourselves out of emotion and circumvent our feelings, it becomes a habit that deadens us to the world and each other. I think that’s why we revere actors so much—they show so much real emotion. Most people don’t. They keep a “stiff upper lip” and die inside. Once I said enthusiastically to a man, “This is stupendous!” He looked at me quizzically and said, “I never use words like stupendous. Nothing seems to rate that much excitement to me.” How sad! Someone in his past must have told him that it wasn’t okay to get excited.

Pick some exciting words and use them! It’s fabulous, terrific, stupendous, extraordinary, superior, amazing, astounding! Write in exclamation points! Celebrate your little wins and enjoy them. You earned it! And your happiness will infect everyone around you, too.

Today’s Affirmation:
“I celebrate all my stupendous wins every day!”

I still celebrate the little wins. If you have to wait for the big win, you’re just not going to be very happy in the meantime, are you? I want to be happy all the time, every day!

Marci Shimoff, wrote the NY Times bestselling book “Happy for No Reason”. In her travels as a speaker and author of several “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books, she came across very happy people and very miserable people, and their happiness quotient didn’t seem to have much to do with their circumstances.

She decided to research happiness, asking everyone she met, “Who’s the happiest person you know?” Usually, the first person they’d mention would be someone fabulously successful, but then they’d stop and say they weren’t “really happy.” She kept searching and interviewing people. She discovered habits that happy people share and determined to write a book to show people how to consciously develop lasting happiness.

I was honored that she chose me as one of her “Happy 100”, and included one of my stories in her book. How she found me is quite a serendipitous chain-of-events story:

Marci’s co-author of her book, Carol Kline, had also helped write Jack Canfield and Gay Hendricks’ book “You’ve Got to Read This Book: 55 People Tell the Story of the Book That Changed Their Life”. I had been invited to submit a story for that book, and it was chosen for publication.

As Carol and I worked together, we became friends and had great fun sharing ideas and stories with each other. One day, I asked her how I had gotten an invitation to write a story for the book. I knew Jack slightly, but many people knew him, so I wasn’t sure he had thought of me for this. Carol said she didn’t know, but she’d ask and find out.

She called me back, laughing. Someone in Jack’s office was reading another book I was profiled in – “How to Run Your Business Like a Girl” by Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin. They called Elizabeth to ask her to submit a story, and Elizabeth said, “Have you asked Chellie? You have to ask Chellie for a story!” And that’s how I got my invitation.

But how had I gotten profiled in Elizabeth’s book, you might ask? Elizabeth had gotten an early copy of “The Wealthy Spirit” and called to introduce herself and interview me for her book. See how it works? There aren’t six degrees of separation any more. I think we’re down to two or three!

The point is, I was chosen to be a role model for happiness because I celebrate little wins. Want to be happier? Find reasons to be happy right now, where you sit, in whatever circumstances you find yourself. Happy without regard to circumstances, but because you’ve chosen to be. You can always find evidence to back up whatever position you choose to hold.

So today, choose happiness. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being best, how happy are you?