Small Wins Quotes

Small wins are exactly what they sound like, and are part of how keystone habits create widespread changes. A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage," one Cornell professor wrote in 1984. "Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win."4.14 Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. ~ Charles Duhigg

Winning is not just a moment of glory, it's a journey of peaks and valleys.
Perseverance Matters!

Winning is a habit.
Small wins matter!

Winning is an attitude.
Mindset Matters!

Winning is a choice.
Hard work matters!

Winning is your responsibility.
Winning matters! ~ Farshad Asl

The importance of "small wins"

When we believe that we can win it's amazing how positive we can become.

So, to make positive change, plan small wins along the way. ~ Tony Curl

Set aside an hour every day to think and reflect without distractions. ~ Abhishek Ratna

Track your small wins to motivate big accomplishments. ~ Teresa Amabile

A small win is a concrete, complete, implemented outcome of moderate importance. By itself, one small win may seem unimportant. A series of wins at small but significant tasks, however, reveals a pattern that may attract allies, deter opponents, and lower resistance to subsequent proposals. Small wins are controllable opportunities that produce visible results. ~ Karl E. Weick

More often than not, the secret of success lies in the very basic the very small wins. The small, consistent and disciplined steps lead to big successes. ~ Abhishek Ratna

Keystone habits offer what is known within academic literature as "small wins." They help other habits to flourish by creating new structures, and they establish cultures where change becomes contagious. ~ Charles Duhigg

I've found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Do not lose focus because of small wins or temporary set-backs. You can only score if you keep your eyes on the ball and be certain of where you want to place it even if you are not in physical sight of the goal. Visualise the dream but never take your eyes off the dynamic plan of action. ~ Archibald Marwizi

You don't need a grand plan, you don't need to go back to the ancestors and rewrite the rules. You just need to take small steps and accumulate small wins. ~ Bruce Feiler

Small wins do not combine in a neat, linear, serial form, with each step being a demonstrable step closer to some predetermined goal," wrote Karl Weick, a prominent organizational psychologist. "More common is the circumstance where small wins are scattered ... like miniature experiments that test implicit theories about resistance and opportunity and uncover both resources and barriers that were invisible before the situation was stirred up. ~ Charles Duhigg

These small wins matter more because they are so much more likely to occur compared to the big break-throughs in the world. If we only waited for the big wins, we would be waiting a long time. And we would probably quit long before we saw anything tangible come to fruition. What you need instead of big wins is simply the forward momentum that small wins bring. ~ Hendrie Weisinger

If world problems feel too big to tackle, think small. Step by step. Small wins build confidence, lead the way to change. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Aunt Hattie, when you wrote that book, I imagine you were thinking of something radical: the abolition of slavery itself. You were only one small woman, and you were looking up at an enormous edifice, towering and monolithic, but what you wrote made the whole structure start to tremble and shudder, and finally, it all came down, thundering and crashing. It wasn't just because of your book, of course, but your book made it impossible for people to think of slavery in the old way. ~ Roxana Robinson

We were a very small circle of writers. Everybody brought to the table their own life experience. ~ Howie Mandel

The least of His reporters I
Who take some small note from His sky
and let the Universe pass by. ~ Alice Klauber

The trouble with plastic surgery is that after 10 years, gravity wins out and you have to have another one in a year or so ~ Linda Evans

We had a little slave boy whom we had hired from some one, there in Hannibal. He was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends, half way across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was, perhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping, laughing - it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day, I lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had been singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand it, and wouldn't she please shut him up.
The tears came into her eyes, and her lip trembled, and she said something like this - 'Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and that comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and I cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would understand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.' It was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home, and Sandy's noise was not a trouble to me any more. ~ Mark Twain

I don't think that Women's Liberation will change much though
not because there is anything wrong with their aims, but because it is already clear that the whole world is being shaken into a new pattern by the cataclysms we are living through: probably by the time we are through, if we do get through at all, the aims of Women's Liberation will look very small and quaint. ~ Doris Lessing

You felt she'd done a thousand secret things to her eyes. They needed no haze of cigarette smoke to look at you out of sexy and fathomless, but carried their own along with them. New York must have been for her a city of smoke, its streets the courtyards of limbo, its bodies like wraiths. Smoke seemed to be in her voice, in her movements; making her all the more substantial, more there, as if words, glances, small lewdnesses could only become baffled and brought to rest like smoke in her long hair; remain there useless till she released them, accidentally and unknowingly, with a toss of her head. ~ Thomas Pynchon

What's been coming to Becca, since all this began, is this: real isn't what they try to tell you. Time isn't. Grown-ups hammer down all these markers, bells schedules coffee-breaks, to stake down time so you'll start believing it's something small and mean, something that scrapes flake after flake off of everything you love till there's nothing left; to stake you down so you won't lift off and fly away, somersaulting through whirlpools of months, skimming through eddies of glittering seconds, pouring handfuls of hours over your upturned face. ~ Tana French

I was brought up with a very strong sense of what can happen if your society starts to chip away at the small victories women have won for themselves. ~ Romola Garai

The gross profits in many workouts appear quite small. It's a little like looking for parking meters with some time left on them. However, the predictability coupled with a short holding period produces quite decent average annual rates of return after allowance for the occasional substantial loss. ~ Warren Buffett

It belongs to small-mindedness to be unable to bear either honor or dishonor, either good fortune or bad, but to be filled with conceit when honored and puffed up by trifling good fortune, and to be unable to bear even the smallest dishonor and to deem any chance failure a great misfortune, and to be distressed and annonyed at everything. Moreover the small-minded man is the sort of person to call all slights an insult and dishonor, even those that are due to ignorance or forgetfulness. Small-mindedness is accompanied by pettiness, querulousness, pessimism and self-abasement. ~ Aristotle.

...below even our most obscure physical consciousness is a subconscious being in which as in a covering and supporting soil are all manner of hidden seeds that sprout up, unaccountably to us, on our surface and into which we are constantly throwing fresh seeds that prolong our past and will influence our future,--a subconscious being, obscure, small in its motions, capriciously and almost fantastically subrational, but of an immense potency for the earth-life. Again behind our mind, our life, our conscious physical there is a larger subliminal consciousness,--there are inner mental, inner vital, inner more subtle physical reaches supported by an inmost psychic existence which is the connecting soul of all the rest; and in these hidden reaches too lie a mass of numerous pre-existent personalities which supply the material, the motive-forces, the impulsions of our developing surface existence. For in each of us here there may be one central person, but also a multitude of subordinate personalities created by the past history of its manifestation or by expressions of it on these inner planes which support its present play in this external material cosmos... ~ Sri Aurobindo

He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day that I met him. ~ J.K. Rowling

It has been said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people's lives. We are constantly making small decisions. The outcome determines the success or failure of our lives. That is why it is worthwhile to look ahead, to set a course, and at least be partly ready when the moment of decision comes. True finishers have the capacity to visualize their objective. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride. ~ David Gemmell

[Speaking to a group of wealthy New Yorkers]
A million years ago, the cave man, without tools, with small brain, and with nothing but the strength of his body, managed to feed his wife and children, so that through him the race survived. You on the other hand, armed with all the modern means of production, multiplying the productive capacity of the cave man a million times - you are incompetents and muddlers, you are unable to secure to millions even the paltry amount of bread that would sustain their physical life. You have mismanaged the world, and it shall be taken from you. ~ Jack London

You have everything," she said slowly, as if she were explaining the order of the world to a small child. "A family, a great job, a lot of people who look up to you. You've got a place to go home to." She smiled a little. "So go. ~ Jodi Picoult

It is absurd to believe that soldiers who cannot be made to wear the proper uniform can be induced to move forward in battle. Officers who fail to perform their duty by correcting small violations and in enforcing proper conduct are incapable of leading. ~ George S. Patton

Revolutions come about when small things happen to small people. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

i don't blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. sometimes i stay up thinking of all the places you are hurting which you'll never care to mention. i come from the same aching blood. from the same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it is the only way i know how to tell you. ~ Rupi Kaur

My marriage to Jamie had been for me like the turning of a great key, each small turn setting in the intricate fall of tumblers within me. Bree had been able to turn that key as well, edging closer to the unlocking of the door of myself. But the final turn of the lock was frozen
until I had walked into the print shop in Edinburgh, and the mechanism had sprung free with a final, decisive click. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Right now I feel guilty to be alive. Why? Because I'm wasting it. I've been given this life and all I do is mope it away.
What's worse is, I am totally aware of how ridiculous I am. It would be a lot easier if I believed I was the center of the universe, because then I wouldn't know any better NOT to make a big deal out of everything. I know how small my problems are, yet that doesn't stop me from obsessing about them.
I have to stop doing this.
How do other people get happy? I look at people laughing and smiling and enjoying themselves and try to get inside their heads. How do Bridget, Manda, and Sara do it? Or Pepe? Or EVERYONE but me?
Why does everything I see bother me? Why can't I just get over these daily wrongdoings? Why can't I just move on and make the best of what I've got?
I wish I knew. ~ Megan McCafferty

I'm very fond of an old map of London that used to belong to my father. I'm a big London fan, and the evolution of the city is astonishing, when you look back to Pepys and how small it was - everyone knew each other. ~ Ben Schott

Here I am not the one to throw out. No one steals my warmth and shoes because I am small. No one handles my backside. No one whinnies like sheep or goat because I drop in fear and weakness. No one screams at the sight of me. No one watches my body for how it is unseemly. With you my body is pleasure is safe is belonging. I can never not have you have me. ~ Toni Morrison

Never make trouble in the village' is an unspoken law, but it's a binding law. You may know about your neighbours' sins and shortcomings, but you must never name them aloud. It'd make trouble, and small societies want to avoid trouble. ~ E.C.R. Lorac

Picnic, Lightning

It is possible to be struck by a meteor
or a single-engine plane
while reading in a chair at home.
Safes drop from rooftops
and flatten the odd pedestrian
mostly within the panels of the comics,
but still, we know it is possible,
as well as the flash of summer lightning,
the thermos toppling over,
spilling out on the grass.

And we know the message
can be delivered from within.
The heart, no valentine,
decides to quit after lunch,
the power shut off like a switch,
or a tiny dark ship is unmoored
into the flow of the body's rivers,
the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore.

This is what I think about
when I shovel compost
into a wheelbarrow,
and when I fill the long flower boxes,
then press into rows

the limp roots of red impatiens -
the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth
from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak.

Then the soil is full of marvels,
bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam.
Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue,
the clouds a brighter white,

and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone,
the small plants singing
with lifted faces, and the click
of the sundial
as one hour sweeps into the next. ~ Billy Collins

There was a kind of relief in having your own smallness laid bare before you, and I realized something Davis must have already known: Spirals grow infinitely small the farther you follow them inward, but they also grow infinitely large the farther you follow them out. ~ John Green

For a long time, we've worked on detecting planets with whatever was at hand, making use of existing small telescopes or even amateur telescopes. It's time to move on to the next stage. ~ Andrew Gould

I'm far more interested in the beaux you have left mournful in your wake." His fingers trapped one of the loose curls that bounced around her face, sliding the strands between the pads.
"They were legion. But they were all honorable gentlemen - unlike yourself, I may add."
He gasped his faux outrage."Are you saying my behavior is anything less than exemplary?"
She slid her gaze to the fingers that were still toying with her hair.
His free hand flew to his heart. She stifled a wholly unladylike giggle at his shocked and offended expression. "I demand satisfaction for this insult. Pistols at dawn," he roared into the swaying carriage.
She wrinkled her brow. "I believe, as the challenged party, I get to choose the weapon."
"A thousand apologies, my lady." He cut a small bow in her direction. "Would you rather it be slow and tortuous?"
"I am not cruel," she said loftily. "I can take mercy on you if you so humble yourself before me."
"What if I like it slow and tortuous?" he murmured. ~ Brianna Labuskes

If each person in the room promises that in the twenty-four hours beginning the very next day she or he will do at least one outrageous thing in the name of simple justice, then I promise I will, too. It doesn't matter whether the act is as small as saying, "Pick yourself up" (a major step for those of us who have been our family's servants) or as large as calling for a strike. The point is that, if each of us does as promised, we can be pretty sure of two results. First, the world one day later won't be quite the same.
Second, we will have such a good time doing it that we will never again get up in the morning saying, "WILL I do anything outrageous?" but only "WHAT outrageous act will I do today ~ Gloria Steinem

One way in which we can encourage the Chinese government to take more vigorous action to control food safety in their country is by just saying we're not going to buy Chinese foods until they get their system cleaned up. Admittedly it's a difficult system to get under control because an astonishing percentage - maybe 80 percent - of the foods in China are produced in small backyard operations. ~ Marion Nestle

About her family she had taken a superior view. She considered them somewhat childlike since her power over them in the form of language had given her the privilege of viewing them in this way. And her distance from them, as the distance of all translators from their subjects, allowed her to see that so much of the raison d'etre of their lives was taken up negotiating their way around the small objects of foreignness laced in their way. Either they could not see the larger space of commonality or it was denied them. ~ Dionne Brand

Naodyma isn't exactly a one-temple town, you know. ~ Andrew Ashling

The last decade has seen a powerful counterassault on women's rights, a backlash, an attempt to retract the handful of small and hard-won victories that the feminist movement did manage to win for women. This counterassault is largely insidious: in a kind of pop-culture version of the Big Lie, it stands the truth boldly on its head and proclaims that the very steps that have elevated women's position have actually led to their downfall. ~ Susan Faludi

You cannot help the small men, by tearing down the big men. ~ William J.H. Boetcker

Judaism calls for us to honor the rhythm of human life, the demands of the human community around us, the call of the divine order as the filter and scale for the decisions that drive our own small lives. We do not rule the universe, Judaism reminds us. God does. We are not its standard or its norms. We are only its keepers, its agents, its stewards. To do right by the universe at large is the measure of a happiness framed with the entire cosmos in mind but lived in microcosms across time. ~ Joan D. Chittister

It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense. ~ William Cobbett

If we overcome the pull and "get up and get at it," we will have won a victory. We have kept our own resolve. We can then move to other things, for by small means great things are accomplished. Thus, even this one small step is also in another sense a giant leap. ~ Stephen Covey

To a small man every greater is an exaggeration. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Here came the waitress. She had on a mini-skirt, high heels, see-through blouse with padded brassiere. Everything was too small for her: her outfit, the world, her mind. Her face was hard as steel. When she smiled it hurt. It hurt her and it hurt me. She kept smiling. That smile was so false the hairs on my arms rose. I looked away. ~ Charles Bukowski

[Christopher:] You cannot conceive of the quantity of explosives the armies throw at each other for each man killed! The shells make a continuous noise, sometimes like an enormous machine breaking apart. At other times, they come whistling towards you in a thoughtful sort of way and then go crump and the screw cap flies off, hurtling through the air, screaming. There's a kind of shell which comes with a crescendo like an express train, only faster. Another kind which makes a noise like tearing calico, louder and louder. The largest kind are the ones which burst in the sky and make a double crack, like a wet canvas being shaken out by a giant. Such immense explosions to kill such small, weak animals. ~ Tom Stoppard

Douglas wondered if his friend would make it out of this alive. He realized, not for the first time, that life or death was not the most important thing. The most important thing was the mission, their own small attempt to "proclaim liberty to the captives," as the Book of Isaiah had commanded nearly three thousand years before. To engage in a war where there would be no material benefit for the victor other than the liberation of oppressed and victimized human beings. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

He unfixes the metal notch and slips his hand around the body of the bird. Feels its heat, its small heart beating. He stares at the bird's bright orange eyes. Like the color of the bird's wings in the painting. Or the small touch of lichen on the rock by the Japanese woman's foot. Natalia did not truly see the painting. Is it excitement of the unknown that pulled her away, or despair? He know the answer. He returns the bird to its cage, pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket, and writes, Paris Will lose, but there is a woman who will fight without fear because she believes she has already lost everything. [pp. 1722-173] ~ Nina Schuyler