340: How to Celebrate Small Wins as a First-Gen College and Grad Student

340: Celebrating Small Wins and Strategies to Reward Yourself

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[00:00:00] When I was a kid, I remember working really hard to bring home straight A's on my report card, and I always thought that my mom would be proud, but when she would pick me up from school and I showed her my report card, her response was always. Indifferent. Looking back, I don't blame her single mom, six kids.

There was so much on her plate. She probably didn't realize that she seemed indifferent. But in any case, I compared myself to my peers who literally got paid for every aid that they earned. They got celebrated, they got gifts, they got special dinners, and I didn't get that. And over time, this led to me learning to downplay my achievements even when they were really big.

Like that time at age 13, that I ran a marathon in memory of my dad or the time that I landed the [00:01:00] lead roles in high school plays. Or the many times that I won prestigious scholarships and fellowships in college and grad school, I just went ahead and downplayed them, and I moved on to the next thing and the next thing and the next.

If you've ever felt like your wins didn't matter, then this episode is for you. Because today I'm gonna be talking to you about the importance of celebrating wins and even small wins. And really, I mean it, it's important. There's a whole science to it, and I'm also going to be sharing with you today specific and simple strategies for helping you to reward yourself more.

Welcome to the award-winning grad school Femtoring podcast. The place for first gen [00:02:00] Bipoc to listen in on inclusive grad school stories and learn about personal development and productivity tips. This is Yvette Martinez Vu, a certified coach, consultant and author, and I will be serving as your Femtoring, providing you with insider knowledge to help you reach your personal and professional goals.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette. Today we are talking about how to actually celebrate small wins. This is something I've been thinking about for a while because I know a lot of us hear this. People tell us, make sure you reward yourself.

Make sure you celebrate. And yet for so many of us, [00:03:00] especially those of us that are first gen, or maybe if you're bipoc or maybe if you're neurodivergent, there are so many reasons why we might neglect that part of the process, the part of the process of achieving your goals that involves rewarding yourself.

And so today, I wanna first recognize that this is very common. And also mention that there is a very, very strong reason why you should incorporate rewarding yourself and celebrating yourself as part of your process, as you regularly do your work. So why is it so important? If we look at the science, and I'm not a neuroscientist here, but I know a little bit about t he whole process of rewarding yourself and how it's tied to dopamine. So anytime that you achieve something, your brain releases dopamine. [00:04:00] The dopamine is the chemical that rewards us and it motivates continued effort. A lot of us, when we think about dopamine, we think about pleasure or we think about it as a feel good chemical, but in actuality it's really about motivation.

It provides a strong sense of reward, and because it does that, it helps to keep us motivated and that's why for some of us, especially t hose of us that are neurodivergent, or if you are ADHD, you might find yourself needing more dopamine hits, which means you might find yourself needing more rewards to keep you motivated with doing your work.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, it just means that it helps to know how your brain works and if you need a little bit of extra dopamine that you might need a little bit of extra rewards. And again. There's nothing wrong with that. [00:05:00] So I hope that by knowing this you can remind yourself that rewarding yourself is just as important as doing the work itself. It's just as important as achieving that goal.

So now that I've shared a little bit more about why it's important, I wanna get straight into the strategies because this is the part that I always struggle with when people say, oh, just do this or just do that. I'm always like, but how? Actually give me strategies, tell me what to do.

And of course, there's no one size fits all approach. I say this all the time, but it helps to have examples that you can then pull from to see what may or may not work for you. So here I'm gonna give you 10 different examples, and hopefully you can find one or two that you can implement right away as quickly as today, the day that you're listening to the episode.

So what's your first one? I will say that you can reward yourself by writing a [00:06:00] self-affirming note. What do I mean by this? Take a post-it, take a notepad or even anywhere where you write things down and write down a sentence or two recognizing your accomplishment.

Ideally, you wanna keep it in a place that's visible, so that way you can take a look at it often and remind yourself of the reasons why you're doing a great job, you. Another variation of this is you could write a bunch of little post-it notes and then fold them and put them in a jar. I've seen people who do this, and I really like this idea.

I have yet to do it for myself, and I probably should, but I keep my affirming notes on a Google Doc that I continuously update because that's just quick and easy for me. So you figure out, is it on a notepad, is it on post-Its that you put on a wall? Is it on a little papelito that you put in a jar that you take a look at often? [00:07:00] Either way, find a way to write yourself affirming notes.

Strategy number two is to share your win publicly. It doesn't have to be super public. It doesn't have to be on social media, if you're not comfortable, it could mean sharing your win with someone you trust with a loved one. With a friend, with a family member, maybe you are sending a text message.

Maybe you're recording a quick voice note for a friend. Maybe you're mentioning it to a friend briefly as you're meeting up with them. Either way verbalizing your success helps you to strengthen your connections and to feel validated from others, which again, helps us to feel like we are rewarding ourselves or like we have, celebrated ourselves.

The third strategy is to take a mini [00:08:00] break, or you can call it a movement pause. This is a celebration because let's say you have been working on something for a couple of hours and you're finally done with that task, and it feels like this big sense of relief that you're finally done well, why not celebrate yourself by standing up, by stretching, by dancing to your favorite song. I do that a lot with my daughter because my daughter loves to sing and dance, and so a lot of times when I'm trying to celebrate, I'll just play some of her favorite music or some of my favorite music and I'll dance with her. Or sometimes simply stepping outside to get some fresh air can feel like a reward because you're giving yourself a break.

Strategy number four is any kind of visual reminder or symbol. And this is actually, I'll give an example. This is a good one for my sticker folks. I [00:09:00] know not everybody's into stickers, but my inner child loves stickers and sticker books and sticker rewards. If that works for you, you can do that. Get yourself the coolest stickers that you could never get when you were a kid, or maybe it's adding a little star on your calendar, or maybe it's a physical object that you have next to you or something that you physically buy for yourself that is a reminder of, oh yeah, I did a good job. Or, oh yeah, that's the item I got to celebrate this one moment. So that way each time you look at it, you're reminded of you doing a good job.

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Strategy number five is giving yourself a mindful moment. [00:11:00] This is similar to giving yourself a mini break, but this is much more intentional and much more grounded and can be tied to giving yourself a sense of gratitude. So this can look like pausing for a few minutes, doing some deep breathing, reflecting on your effort, even quietly saying thanks to yourself. This might look like a prayer ritual. This might look like a ritual where you light a candle and then you say that to yourself. Something that feels mindful or ritualistic or spiritual and feels good to you.

Strategy number six is that treat yourself moment. And a lot of us, this is the first thing that comes to mind when we think about treating ourselves. It doesn't have to be this, but this is the common one, right? This is the one where people say, oh, treat yourself to [00:12:00] your favorite beverage, your favorite cup of chai, your favorite coffee, your favorite, beverage of choice, i t could be that. It could also be treating yourself to some comfort food, any food that feels good to you, that feels familiar, that feels safe. It could also mean literally giving yourself permission to scroll on social media if you've been taking a pause. Or giving yourself permission to watch an uplifting video.

Again, I have a mixed feeling about social media, so I know that not all of us think of it as a reward, but social media is not all bad. There are some good things to it, and so if you have curated your social media in a way where it feels uplifting to access it, that could be a treat or a reward for yourself.

Strategy number seven is to take a look at [00:13:00] and access some affirmation or celebration apps. I am less familiar with this. I don't have any affirmation apps on my phone right now, although I do have an app that I recently started using the last couple of weeks, I think it's called Focus Friend. That's the name of the app and it's super cute. It's a little bean. And then as you focus more, it rewards you with these socks that it knits, and then you can trade those socks for different things you can purchase for your home. It's so adorable. My little bean is called Frijolito and it just brings a big smile to my face.

So finding an app that works for you that can help you to log your wins or that can help you to keep yourself motivated, or that can give you a visual tracker to see your progress. That can be really helpful.

Now, strategy number [00:14:00] eight is to create a quick celebration ritual. So this is similar to what I mentioned earlier about that mindful moment where it could be lighting a candle. I'm mentioning that again because I grew up i n a space full of candles. My mom has a botanica, so candles are near and dear to my heart. It could also mean playing a specific song. It could mean clapping for yourself. I know it sounds silly, but if no one else is gonna celebrate you, you still get to celebrate yourself. Whatever that thing is, a small ritual that feels good to you, that you can do every single time you have this small win. Do that.

Strategy number nine is to create your own visual progress board. I've seen some people do this where they're keeping progress of paying off debt or they're [00:15:00] keeping progress of any other achievement that requires tracking numbers.

And so if you know you're working on something like that, let's say as an example, you're keeping track of the number of pages that you're writing for a dissertation chapter, and you're aiming for 50 pages. You can have a visual progress board where every five pages, you add a mark on it or you fill it in, and then you can see and celebrate how close you're getting to finishing that task or that project.

And then the last strategy I'm gonna share is to set a reward goal for a bigger reward or a bigger celebration. So this is where, similar to having a progress board, you can give yourself your own internal rule that after a set number of small [00:16:00] wins, you're gonna give yourself a bigger reward, and I don't know what that bigger reward is.

Maybe it's checking out a new hobby, maybe it's going to a concert. Or maybe it's going to the movies or maybe it's signing up for this really exciting virtual workshop. Or maybe it's treating yourself to a m assage or anything that obviously is within budget 'cause I recognize that life is very expensive right now. So whatever that bigger reward should feel doable for you, accessible for you, and still feel like it's a bigger deal than your small wins.

So in any case. Just as a quick reminder, I'm gonna go through the 10 strategies to celebrate small wins, so that way you can figure out which one you're gonna try out for yourself this week.[00:17:00]

And so once again, the first one is write an affirming note. The second one is share your Win with others. The third one is take a mini break or movement pause. The fourth one is create a visual reminder or have a visual symbol. The fifth one is set time aside for a mindful moment. The sixth one is treat yourself to something small.

The seventh one is use an affirmation or celebration app. The eighth one is create a quick celebration ritual. The ninth one is add to a visual progress board, and the 10th one is set a reward goal for a bigger win or for a bigger reward. That's it. Now, before I let you go, I wanna remind [00:18:00] yourself to just check in with yourself and ask yourself, honestly, when was the last time that you celebrated a small win?

What did you do? What felt good, what felt uplifting for you? Next, think about any rituals or practices that feel aligned with you, with your culture, with your identities, with your capacity, and how can you start to bring that in to your small wins? And then the last thing, of course, it's what I mentioned earlier, which is, which is the one small win you can incorporate today.

I hope that you found something helpful with this episode. I hope that you can recognize all of your hard work. You're doing so much. I know that so many people don't recognize everything that is on your plate, but some of us, we see you, we feel you, we understand you, so you deserve to celebrate yourself.

Go ahead and do that. Okay? All [00:19:00] right. That's it for this episode, and as always, I'll talk to you all next time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu: thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, playlists on all things grad school, productivity, and personal development.

The third way to support my show is to follow me on social media. You can find me on Instagram with the handle at gradschoolfemtoring and on LinkedIn by searching my name. Thanks again for listening. And until next time.