Small Wins Can Change Everything
Author: Jessie Podolak, Clinical and Community Resources Director
A friend recently told me she was back on track with some important health habits after several months of being “on the wrong side of the flip”.
When we get stuck in a rut with food choices, physical activity, stress, or sleep, it can feel like a downward spiral. One thing slips, then another, until it seems everything is moving in the wrong direction.
Fortunately, spirals can move upward, too!
When I asked my friend what helped turn things around, she replied, “I went back to something I knew I could do…water.”
Yep… WATER!
This simple act of increasing her daily water intake to a measurable number of ounces—a strategy that had worked well during healthier seasons of life—felt doable.
After a week of consistently meeting her goal, my friend’s confidence began to bloom, and a desire for more emerged. She added a short daily stress management practice and stuck with it.
A month passed, and now with a handful of small, healthy habits in place, she was able to lift her spirits and restore a sense of vitality.
I hadn’t seen her smile like this in several months, and we celebrated her win together. AMAZING!
The science behind my friend’s success is quite clever. Previously dubbed the “reward chemical,” the neurotransmitter dopamine is now understood to play an important role in motivation and learning. When you accomplish something you value—even something small—your brain reinforces the behaviors that led to that success.
Dopamine plays an important role in that learning process. Think of my friend’s brain saying, “Drinking that water nudged you toward becoming the healthy person you’re becoming. Let’s remember to do it again tomorrow.”
Because our brains respond particularly well to frequent, achievable rewards, momentum can build through surprisingly simple actions. The positive feedback loop begins working in our favor, with meaningful change accumulating in a reliable, sustainable way.
The goal isn’t to transform your life in one week. The goal is to create enough small wins that your next healthy choice becomes just a little easier than the last.
Wins beget more wins as we demonstrate to ourselves that we are capable of doing what we set out to do. As we “check the box” each day, evidence builds.
Even without dramatic overnight change, we are becoming who we intend to become: a healthy person, an energetic person, a harmonious person.
In Atomic Habits (one of my favorite books), James Clear writes, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
Another pearl of wisdom in my friend’s comment is this: “I went back to what worked…”
For anyone who has experienced even a brief season of progress toward better health, there is likely a lesson you can carry forward into the present. How did you feel about yourself during that time? Capable? Energized? Clear? That memory can help generate momentum.
What was it about the strategy you used that was effective? Was it its simplicity? Its convenience? Having someone to do it with?
A win is a win. Sometimes it’s that simple.
As you ponder your own upward spiral, consider these questions:
What’s your “water?”
What’s the simple thing you’ve done before that worked?
How can you use that to cast a vote for the person you are becoming?
Who will you celebrate with when you take that first small step?
Whatever your first small step is, we’ll be here cheering you on.
You got this!
-J 😊 🙌🏻
