Remember your successes. Better yet, write them down. Our brains are terrible at remembering and doubly so with our own successes, especially the small ones.

What’s so important about tracking successes? Our brains can be almost too good at remembering unresolved issues, or open loops. Every little thing that we’ve been meaning to or haven’t gotten around to or will want to do eventually fights for space in our mental RAM. Like a software garbage collector, anything we’ve finished, our closed loops, get dropped to make room for more concerns. Without a concrete record of your accomplishments, your brain will come to see only failures to act and failures to succeed. And that’s a painful state of mind. Writing those successes down reminds you of just how many loops you have closed, providing real motivation to accomplish more. The more successes you track, the greater the buffer against failure. Tracking your small successes, then, makes all the difference to sustainable success.

You could record your successes in many ways: a checkbox checked, a Bullet Journal page filled out, a blog post for bigger wins, and, of course, gold stars. That’s no joke about the stars, either. Every one of us who celebrated their sticker rewards back in kindergarten still has some of that wiring laying around and waiting to be of service again. However you do it, record as many closed loops as practical. On bad days, record more than you think necessary, in steps as small as necessary. This record will show your mind that you can succeed, despite your doubts. Remember your successes and your successes will be remembered.