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#227 The Science of Celebrating Progress (Why Your Brain Ignores Your Wins And How to Fix It)

Episode 227 • 21st April 2026 • The Happiness Challenge • Klaudia Mitura

Hello happiness seekers. Welcome back to the Happiness Challenge. My name is Claudia.

I'm a work psychologist and certified chief happiness officer and I explore science backed habits for a happier life.

In the episode 225, my guest, Gavin Oates, best selling author, speaker, stand up comedian, author of a book, confidently Lost, discussed with me that progress isn't always about big milestones and it's not always linear.

And I know it sounds very obvious, but hey, we often forget that this and he was talking about the concept of celebrating tiny rebellions like saying no, setting boundaries or doing less. So in episode 226 I have shared with you five ideas to celebrate your wins, especially when progress feels slow, messy or imperfect.

And I do hope that you have tried those out to wrap up this month's challenge. In this episode I'm diving into the science behind why celebrating progr can transform our happiness and motivation. So let's dive in.

Now the first thing I want to say is that I had real fun with those five ideas of celebrating the small wins.

I did all of them at different points and I did my little dances, I shared some wins with my friends, with my LinkedIn community, and I have some spotted and noted small wins. I drank more water today, or I spoke kindly to myself, or I was brave to actually express how I feel about this at work even though it was difficult.

And I had this entire reflection that personally for me, this practice of celebrating small wins that I've been doing now for longer than this month only really helps me to manage my imposter syndrome.

As part of publishing my book the Alphabet of Happiness, I've been talking a lot about my imposter syndrome, Linda, that always is there and definitely gets louder and louder if I need to do something new outside of my comfort zone. And I've noticed that when Linda start questioning whether I'm good enough to do this, well, who am I to do this thing? I refer back to my small wins.

I remind myself about my small past achievements, about my strengths to help me to manage that imposter syndrome. So I personally really believe that learning to notice your wins might be the one of the most important happiness skills you will ever build.

I really mean it because otherwise you could be growing, improving and showing in really powerful ways, but still feeling like you are falling behind or like you're not good enough. So I really do hope that you will be celebrating your wins and it will become your regular well being practice.

But let's start from the start, shall we? Why is it that our brain is not really Good at spotting progress. There are three reasons, so let's dive deeper into those.

First, Let's start with the big one, negativity bias. In simple terms, our brain is designed and evolved to notice problems more than progress.

Thousands of years ago, this is what kept our ancestors alive. If our ancestors would have ignored threats, they would not have said survived.

So naturally, we will be constantly scanning for what's wrong, what's risky, and what still needs fixing. That means that today we will do things like replay the one awkward comment that someone made.

Instead of the three compliments that we got about our project at work, we will focus on what we didn't do and finish on our to do list, rather than on everything that we have finished and did very well. It is about we will minimize our growth and absolutely magnify our mistakes and dwell on those. And all of this is because of that negativity bias.

There is also another sneaky reason why maybe your wins don't land and you don't really notice them is that we keep moving the goalposts. I'm sure you also recognize this. You work towards something, you finally achieve it, and then almost immediately you think, what's next?

Now we can do this.

This happens because of something called hedonic Adaptation is our natural tendency to quickly return to a baseline level of satisfaction after positive changes. So that basically means that our brain normalizes achievements really fast.

So instead of feeling proud for longer, we raise the bar, we shift the target, and we compare ourselves to someone farther ahead. Now, of course, it's not about not being ambitious.

It's not about, say, setting more goals, but it's more very much understanding that if we do this too quickly, our wins disappear emotionally, even though the progress is real.

And that is one of the reasons why studies on high achievers shows that they often feel less satisfied because they very quickly move the finish line. They already on the next go, rather than really thinking about and celebrating those wins emotionally.

And the final reason, the third reason, is something we can call achievement amnesia. That is, our brain quickly forgets how far we've actually come. We very quickly adapt to new normal that actually yesterday's growth is now ordinary.

Something ordinary. Today, again think about skills that once felt hard, now they feel basic, so we don't celebrate them.

Boundaries that once felt scary now feel part of a routine again, we don't celebrate that. Progress that once felt huge now feels expected. Again, we don't celebrate that.

So because our brain updates the expectation, we stop giving ourselves any credit. Now, these three hidden traps Negativity bias, hedonic adaptation and achievement amnesia, they have severe consequences for our happiness.

So first of all, if we have progress without acknowledgment, we will feel like we are running on a treadmill. We'll be keep pushing, we keep striving, we keep doing the next thing, but we never quite feeling satisfied.

Research on progress principle by two researchers, Teresa Amabel and Stephen Kramer shows that even small wins at work significantly boost motivation and positive emotion. Without noticing those small wins, people report lower engagement and higher burnout.

Okay, again this idea, if we don't notice the progress, we feel like we are on the treadmill and ultimately we will burn out. Second consequence of not noticing and celebrating our wins is that we start living with a constant background feeling of being behind.

So if your brain keeps discounting what you have already done, the finish line always feel just out of reach. And we start having this negative thinking such as I should be farther along. Once I achieve this, then I will be happy and I will relax.

And this chronic sense of maybe not quite measuring up and over time that means that our happiness becomes conditional on some future version of success and the goalpost is keeps moving and the happiness becomes a destination. But we know that happiness is a starting point and should be a starting point.

If we're happy right now, we will be more successful in the future because our brain performs better when we are happy. So even from that perspective, being happy right now is so important to our overall progress in life.

And finally this one which I personally struggle the most with, it's when we ignoring our wins, we are eroding our self belief. Because confidence is not a kind of just a hype feeling. It's very much built from evidence.

So every single time we noticed, I handled that, I followed this through, I showed up when it was hard. You are building a case for your own abilities and your own self belief.

And if we don't do that, our evidence file that we can do things that are difficult in life stays very thin and the narrative becomes I'm not good enough. And as I said already, this is one of the things that I often struggle with.

And that's why celebrating wins is so powerful for my imposter syndrome and for my self belief. So I do hope that I have shown you in this episode that celebrating progress isn't just a feel good activity.

And also it's not selfish, it's also not arrogant. It is absolutely science backed strategy for building resilience, motivation, self belief and lasting happiness. And really celebrating progress.

It's a massive antidote to how our brain operates and to allow those hidden traps that we have and to all of those consequences that we might be carrying, not realizing that we do and not knowing how to fix them Celebrate your progress when you are celebrating your wins, you gently retrain your brain to notice progress instead of only problems and mistakes. And when you pause to name what went well, even if it's very small, you create a powerful feedback loop.

Your brain registers effort, releases a small boost of motivation, and becomes more likely to repeat the behavior in the future. And over time, this simple habit of celebrating wins absolutely builds momentum.

It strengthens our self belief and softens all of those insecurities that we may be carrying. It's not to fake positivity. It's not to ignore what still needs work. It's not to become less ambitious.

It's to give our progress the emotional credit it deserves because we are progressing in life and that is important to notice.

So if you're still thinking I'm still not sure how to do all of this, you can revisit episode 226 when I have shared with you five ideas to celebrate your wins. But really overall trick is to simply take a pause to celebrate and also reframe your progress.

Now since we are speaking about celebration, I just would like to give a massive shout out, a massive thank you and celebrate that. People are reviewing my book the Alphabet of Happiness on Amazon and the reviews are absolutely kind.

I'm reading every single review, every single time it comes. I'm reading it, I'm rereading it and I love that. So thank you. Thank you much so so much for doing that.

You are celebrating the success of the Alphabet of Happiness with me and I love this. When I look at the reviews I can see what people love about the book, which is so powerful because that's what I intended for the book to do.

So a few things that you are mentioning is people of the practical A to Z structure. Many people describe it as a toolkit that they can revisit repeatedly and jump to the topic they need most.

Again, that's exactly what I wanted the book to be. You also mentioning loving the strong blend of science and warmth. So again lots of comments around that.

There is lots of science backed content but it's quite approachable. And actually you don't think that the book is preachy, which again I didn't want the book to be preachy. I don't have it all sorted out.

This is just my experience when it comes to happiness and lots of people writing how they appreciate my personal stories. So thank you for receiving those personal stories with so much love.

And finally, there is a common theme that the book encourages small meaningful changes rather than dramatic life overhauls. And my favorite phrase was permission to be a messy human.

And yes we do have permission to be messy humans, but we can make small tweaks to help us to build the more happiness.

So again, thank you so much for reviewing the Alphabet of Happiness as today's world is based on algorithm and without your reviews the book is not going to be found by other people. It's not going to show up on the key list on Amazon. So again, thank you so much for your support. Please do keep reviewing it on Amazon or Goodreads.

Okay, I'll leave you with all of this.

Thank you so much again everyone Keep noticing those small wins, they do adapt to a big change and to a big change when it comes to our level of happiness. And I see you at the next episode. Bye.

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