When I got into the Civil Services, my mind did not go ‘Wow, this is great news.’ It was more like — ‘Ok, this is done. Now, what next?’
All my life, I have chased the next mountain to climb.
As a result, I ended up trying a lot of different things, failing often and succeeding occasionally. But funnily, whenever I fail, I rarely say ‘Let us move on. What’s next?’
Most of us do the same — we agonize over our failures and excoriate ourselves for being stupid, incapable, or worse. But if we meet a measure of success, we take it for granted.
Is it any wonder we don’t see the good things in our life?
If you don’t savor your successes, nobody else will. It doesn’t matter if the success is big or small. In fact, the daily effort and small successes you meet on the way are more precious than the big final success.
Also, acknowledging your daily wins causes dopamine release in your brain, which motivates you to keep going. Without that, most of us would quit.
Having big ambitions is fine — nothing intrinsically right or wrong about it. But don’t be so fixated on the final win as to overlook the journey and the small wins on the way.
Else, you will wonder why good things don’t happen to you. They do — just that you didn’t notice them.
– Rajan