Tip 26: How to savour your progress

There is always more to be done - why focussing on progress helps manage the overwhelm. A tip on setting & celebrating milestones - ours included.

Hey-ho

Landing in your inbox with a greeting that speaks of both weariness and happiness.¹ How I love the English language! With that mix of hey-ho feelings in mind, onto this week’s writing tip.

The ‘what done’ versus ‘to do’ equation

The deadline was looming and there was so much more work to be done. Writing my first book was hard, in hindsight I shouldn’t have agreed to that deadline, not while working full time. I set my morning alarm increasingly earlier to write before work. I was tired, overwhelmed and felt pretty miserable about the whole endeavour.

Nobel Prize winning scientist Marie Curie is quoted as saying:

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done."
- Marie Curie

Curie achieved so much. She was celebrated in her lifetime for her world-changing, life-saving research; she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win the award in two different fields. Did she notice that? I can only guess, but reading into her quote, Curie is aware that noticing what we have done is part of the equation. 

Stop and smell the roses

Focussing our attention on milestones, such as hitting a word count or finishing an essay or a story, can lead to a positive mindset as we work towards our long-term goals. Researchers² call this ‘savouring’. In short, giving our attention to those moments of pleasure, helps us to appreciate and enhance positive experiences.

Savouring is considered to be the opposite of coping, which was my approach when grinding out the words on my first book.

So, back to that exhausted summer of 2018, when I was writing and working and despairing about how much I had to do. I kept working at the same pace³ but I switched my focus to the other side of the equation. Rather than just seeing what remains, I began to notice what I had done.

Not only that, I began to celebrate my progress, so when I hit a milestone such as a drafted chapter, I did something nice. Nothing fancy, meeting up with friends at the weekend for a coffee or cocktail, taking a slightly longer walk in the sunshine, sharing a nice meal.

Celebrate how far you’ve come

Looking back now, I have a vague feeling of how hard it was to write that book. Yet, I remember my celebrations clearly - they are specific, distinct recollections. As I wrote about in the power of noticing good things, memory is like a camera, in that it will only capture what you focus on. Celebrating milestones changed I how I felt about the process of writing and what I remembered about that experience.

Celebrating activates the reward centre of the brain, releasing feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine. Creating these moments of joy and celebration increases wellbeing in the present.

It also leads to a sense of satisfaction at our achievement which can help motivate us to continue. This is why it’s so valuable to celebrate progress as well as output.

• What can you notice and celebrate today? Did you write, show up to the page, hit a time or word count goal? Small is good - actually, it’s precisely the point.

• What about this week - what are you working towards, how will you notice your progress? Can you make a note or track so you have something tangible to remember?

• What small way can you attach pleasure to what has been done and rebalance your equation with ‘what remains’?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this - pop a comment below or add a question if you’d like to explore further.

Sharing our milestones

All this is a roundabout way of saying we’ve hit a milestone - last week we posted our 25th writing tip and it has been a joy to share these approaches and to hear how you use them.

There’s more! We’ve just celebrated our first year on Substack and we hit a personal milestone with a large anniversary. This week in 1997 after working a Saturday shift together in Dillons Bookshop, Chris and I had our first kiss in the very glamorous setting of Stockport market. 😘​

While we won’t be sharing a link to photos from that time you can click to view all our Writing Tips in one handy place.⁴

Here’s a few of our favourites:

💙 Tip 5: Design a shut down ritual

💙 Tip 15: Increase your luck surface area by finding your tribe

💙 Tip 20: Do one thing for your writing today

💙 Tip 21: Focus on practice not output

Here’s an earlier milestone celebration we posted about acknowledging progress.

Thank you so much for reading and sharing our celebrations. And, as it’s our anniversary, why not send us some love by clicking the heart?

Bec ❤️​

1. Definition of hey-ho in British English, ‘an exclamation of weariness, disappointment, surprise, or happiness’ - Collins Dictionary.

2. Bryant, F. B., & Veroff, J. (2007). Savoring: A new model of positive experience.

3. I’m not proud of this. In hindsight, I would have been much kinder to myself, negotiated an extended deadline, taken a break and got some perspective. The perseverance to keep going was both my super power and my nemesis and it could have ended very differently. I was lucky to avoid burnout and am hopefully wiser and kinder now.

4. The mathematically minded will have calculated that it’s our 27th anniversary this weekend. Seeing as this is tip number 26 - perhaps the next one is advice on writing and working together while married…