Learning to Celebrate the Slow Wins

Writing is one of those odd pursuits where progress sometimes feels invisible. In other areas of my life, wins are much easier to recognise because they’re measured in hitting targets and seeing tangible results, often at speed. Writing is completely different. I spend hours, days, sometimes years working on something that lives inside my own head. Because of this, I sometimes find it difficult to recognise my own achievements, particularly when we are surrounded by the constant stream of other people’s milestones online.

Every day we see brilliant announcements about book deals, finished drafts, award nominations and glowing reviews. It’s wonderful to celebrate those successes, and I genuinely love seeing good things happen to other writers, but it is also very easy to start measuring yourself against other writers’ progress.

I’m a slow writer. My books take time, partly because I like to think things through and partly because I have far more perfectionist tendencies than are good for me. When I see writers who seem to move quickly from idea to finished manuscript or writing thousands of words in a single day, it’s tempting to assume that I must be doing something wrong.

The danger with this line of thinking is that it quietly shifts your attention away from your own journey and places it somewhere unhelpful. Instead of recognising what you have achieved, you start focusing on what you have not done yet or what someone else appears to have done better.

One thing that has helped me is changing who I compare myself to. Instead of comparing myself with other writers, I try to compare myself with where I was yesterday, last month, or a year ago. That shift sounds simple, but it has made a real difference.

Part of this has involved setting small, manageable goals. One of the smallest, and surprisingly most effective, is to write one sentence a day. It almost sounds ridiculous, but it removes the pressure of needing a perfect writing session and gives me a reason to sit down and start. Most of the time I end up writing far more than that, but even on the days when I only write that single sentence, I have still moved things forward.

Another habit that has helped me recognise my progress is taking a moment at the end of the day to write down the positive things that happened that day. These are not grand achievements or career milestones, but tiny wins that recognise progress. They may not look impressive on social media, but they are the real substance behind any goal. When you start noticing them and writing them down, you begin to see progress more clearly, and it helps you recognise that the work is moving forward even on the days when it feels slow.

I suspect I need this reminder because writers spend a lot of time focusing on future goals, whether that’s finishing the next manuscript, finding an agent, getting published or writing the next book. Having big, exciting goals can be a powerful motivator, but if we’re always looking ahead to the next milestone, we can forget how far we’ve already travelled.

Looking at where I am now, I can see how much has changed. Over the years I have published five books, won two awards, and spoken at festivals and school events about books that once only existed in my head. I have also secured a literary agent, something that once felt a long way off.

And yet, if I am honest, I don’t always think about those things when I am sitting at my desk worrying about the next manuscript. It’s remarkably easy to overlook past milestones when your mind is already focused on the next challenge, the next idea, or the next goal you hope to reach.

That is part of the strange psychology of writing. The moment one goal is achieved, another quietly takes its place, and instead of stopping to recognise how far you have come, your attention shifts to what still needs to be done.

These milestones reflect where I am in my own writing journey. For someone just starting out, success might look completely different. It might be finishing a first chapter, completing a draft, or simply finding the confidence to share their work. What counts as an achievement shifts as our careers develop, which is another reason it can be so easy to overlook progress when we are focused only on the next step.

That is why celebrating success can sometimes feel like a discipline rather than a natural instinct. It requires pausing long enough to notice the work that has already been done and recognising that progress does not always come with champagne and celebration.