Why you should celebrate your small wins

Last year I narrated this fabulous short documentary ‘Pedigree Poultry’ on poultry shows and I heard this week from the director Louissa Wragg that it has been nominated for an award 😉 This is a documentary about people who wash and blow dry their poultry and compete with them. Basically Crufts without the sheepdog trials but more feathers. It is super cute and I now know a lot more about poultry shows!

The reason I mention this is that as creatives, we do projects and then start thinking immediately about the next one, or the pne we put aside to get the current one finished. Whether a project is a big success or a failure, our creatively brilliant brains will always be throwing lots of new possibilities at us. We get overwhelmed about what is the next step, the next right project or we can be left nursing the wounds of the last project; a harsh critic, critical but not commercial success or indeed vice versa. I have just come off a six day location shoot and just collapsed and was unable to move for 36 hours bar stuffing my little face full of chocolate…

It is invaluable then to keep remembering the small wins and the moments in life that do ‘take our breath away’. I am not saying that if we win this short documentary award it will be the best highlight of my career, although I think the director will be rightly proud. However it has really made me laugh; especially with the amount of teachers I have had banging on about my diction and use of my voice.

Take a moment to write down all your successes and wins, no matter how large or small, a 12 month period is always a good time period. I always do this at the end of each year as a revision.

Examples of small and big wins could be

• learning a new skill,
• getting a project to completion and out the door,
• a wonderful compliment someone gave you
• helping someone else bring their huge project to life

Celebrating your small wins will

• Make you smile
• Recollect the joy of doing the work in the first place.
• Realise that the making of art is often a collaborative affair.
• Remind yourself that you can make things happen.
• Remind yourself that things can get really tough and yet we can choose to keep fighting forward with our work even if it is one small step at a time.
• Remind yourself that you are a creative, you were born to express your ideas through your own unique funnel and some people will love your perspective.
• You can create something out of nothing, be it on paper, computer or on a physical plane.
• Life is full of ups and downs and the small moments of joy need to be fully embraced and celebrated!
• You can keep this list in a special place and drag it out when life and projects are in their full resistance stage.
• Make you see that in saying No to some things or at least curtailing them (inappropriate relationships, too much alcohol, sex. drugs and partying) allow you to have the time and energy to make your art, be it a film or a book.
• Make you more likely to focus on finishing the next project in hand

The nominated documentary was Louissa’s graduation entry, she got a First and I just got this lovely email from her about Pedigree Poultry.

I’ve also just found out it’s been nominated for a royal television society student north west awards. I have the awards ceremony on the 23rd. I will of course give you a mention in my acceptance speech if it happens…

What can I say? Yes I know it is not the Oscars but how fabulous when all the work a whole group of people do to make a film and it gets appreciated by others. Who doesn’t want to win awards and I will happily add award winning chicken documentary narrator to my CV 😉
How fun! I will of course keep you updated on this fabulous development in my career.

I can hear the nominations read out now …..

So why don’t you take 10 minutes today and write down your small wins, ideally collate them in a place you can find them a la a ‘File Of Happiness’

If you want to read more on building such a file…

Focus on ‘You are great’, not the no’s! Build a file of happiness.

Podcast on Creative Productivity & Building a File of Happiness

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