In almost everything we do, we aim for victories.

Victories keep up motivated and allow us to show off to friends and generally make us feel like the winners we are.

But more often than not we can’t achieve victories in any trackable amount of time.

True victories come after years and years of work and research and training and sweating blood until one day you reach the goal you had originally aimed for. By then, though, the path to victory has become such a normal part of life, it would seem strange to even celebrate. In a lot of cases, the crossing of these finish lines goes completely unnoticed.

And this is great, because it means we are living for the journey, not for the goal, and that means we’re also enjoying life a whole lot more.

But it’s still fun to celebrate, so I’d like to make a modest proposal: let’s celebrate not sucking as much as we did before.

Because when we start completely fresh in a new field of study, we generally suck pretty bad. Any movement closer to mastery is a good excuse for wild hand-waving, raucous dance parties, and assorted cork popping.

Any time you stop and realize that you don’t suck as much at something as you used to, at the very least give yourself a pat on the back and acknowledge that you’re continuing to grow. It’s not a full victory yet, but it’s a mile marker on the way to where you want to be.

Update: February 8, 2017

It’s definitely more about the journey than the destination, as corny as that can sound. Nothing wrong with celebrating little milestones and finding value in the small things.