Success breeds Success

We all know that a little bit of success breeds more success and ultimately the goal.

My gym in Gloucester suits me. It’s not a glamourous place full of beautiful people. It’s full of people like me, the demographics work for them and it’s a thriving place. Men in their 40’s and 50’s, hard working and not willing to pay a huge fortune for our daily workout. Whether by chance or plan, the wash area was spruced up this week and new mirrors put in.

I saw myself in the mirror. Had I lost weight? I certainly was looking leaner than normal, maybe my workouts were making a difference. That session I exercised more vigorously than normal and continued my schedule.

A week later I looked carefully at the special mirror and realised that it was a concave mirror designed to make the 50 something men look slimmer. How wickedly clever, it certainly spurred me onto more exercise.

And that’s the point for the gym because they need members to attend regularly otherwise membership fees lapse. A subtle yet naughty way of making us think we were being successful.

The point is well made though, if we feel successful in a small way it spurs us into further action, it’s very motivational to continue succeeding.

So how do you award small successes, small wins that lead to the goal

  • Do you reward your salespeople’s activities as well as their results?
  • Do you celebrate small gains, marginal gains that will lead to a major improvement?
  • Do you break down large goals into small wins that can be achieved easily and celebrated?
  • How do you celebrate wins?
  • Can you put a concave mirror into the men’s washroom at work?

Or is it convex, I was never much good at physics at school.