Every year, I do an end-of-the-year creative review while preparing to set my goals for the new year. It’s helpful for me to do a deep dive into my process, into my productivity, and into the areas where I am most excited to improve.

I’ve talked about my year-end review process on the blog before (you can check out that post here if you’re interested in more detail). Today I want to talk about a topic connected to the year-end review that’s very near and dear to my heart: measuring success.

I had the privilege this past October of speaking at the DFW Writers’ Conference. It was a wonderful event, and they brought in powerhouse writers Heather Graham and Julie Murphy to give the keynote addresses. One of the most interesting aspects of their speeches was what they had to say about the way we think about success.

When will you say “I’ve made it!” as a creative?

Is it having your book in a physical bookstore? Finishing your first script? Signing with representation? Optioning your first script? Getting hired for your first project? Getting staffed in a writers’ room?

All of these are amazing and wonderful benchmarks for career progress. But what happens after you cross that finish line? What will keep you going once you’ve “made it”?

And what about all the hard work that lies between you and that finish line? If it takes you longer than you thought to get there, what will keep you motivated?

Today, I want to offer some thoughts about the value of measuring success in as many ways as you can. This is a lesson I’ve picked up from Coach Chris Bennet, the Nike Global Running Head Coach—and it’s just as applicable to a creative career as it is to your fitness journey. So let’s discover how celebrating the wins you didn’t know were wins can help us show up at that starting line as many times as it takes.

Success #1: Showing Up

This has been a theme over the past couple of months in my posts, and that’s not by accident. Sometimes the best we can do is show up for five minutes, or thirty minutes, or however long it takes you to get through the checkout line at the grocery store. And you know what? The fact that you showed up – even if it was for five minutes – is a win. That’s a success, and it’s a victory that is worth celebrating.

You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to make the choice to skip Netflix to get a couple of scenes written. You don’t have to take your lunch break to work on that short story. Or get up early – way earlier than you’d like – to get your daily word count in when you know your day is jam-packed.

Sometimes we can be tempted to beat ourselves up for not being there for the work for as long as we’d like. Maybe we wanted to get 1000 words written, and 500 was the best we could manage. I, for one, am crushingly hard on myself when I don’t hit the marks I set for myself, and it’s something I’m actively working on.

Let’s be better coaches for ourselves. When we make the effort to show up for the work, no matter how hard it is and no matter how short or long a time we can invest, let’s celebrate it. That’s how we encourage ourselves to show up again tomorrow.

Success #2: Finishing (Anything)

This is the bookend to Success #1. If we show up and start the work, let’s finish it. Did you finish a chapter? Awesome! Celebrate it! Did you finish a scene? An act? A page? A sentence?

Okay, that last one might strike you as totally overdoing the cheerleading for yourself, but if you showed up to write and all that emerged from that labor of love was that one sentence, then heck yes, you should celebrate it!

Of course you should celebrate the big victories too. If you finish a new script or a draft of your novel, that is worth celebrating. That’s a major finish line you’ve crossed, my friend.

Selling that project or pressing publish on that novel are different goals and different finish lines. And just because you haven’t crossed that line yet does not devalue the success of completing the project.

To put it another way, if I show up tomorrow outside my front door and run a mile, I shouldn’t write off the success of finishing that mile just because it’s not the 5K race I’m hoping to complete in three months.

What’s the point of celebrating all of these milestones? Because a creative career is more than the highlight reel, and if the only thing you’re counting as “worth it” is the paycheck or the fame, it’s going to be a very, very long road.

Success #3: Progress

This one’s a tough one, or can be if you don’t approach it with the right mindset. But remember, this is all about measuring success and celebrating it, so hopefully, that will help us avoid being bashed by our inner critic.

Measuring your progress is a way of respecting where you are right now in your creative career while keeping your eye on what’s next. But progress measured against a goal we haven’t reached yet isn’t always helpful. Sometimes the best way to celebrate our progress is to look back.

Compare your last or latest draft of your script to your first draft. Amazing, right? Now, what if you compared that latest script to your very first script ever? See how far you’ve come?

If you’re only just getting started, you can measure your progress another way. Before you got started, you had zero words. Now you have–what? Ten pages? Fifty pages? That’s awesome!

We all know the proverb that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. But a journey of a thousand miles is completed one step at a time, and every step forward is a step closer to the end goal. So don’t forget to celebrate those steps forward, even if they feel slower or more difficult than you expected. In fact–celebrate them, especially if they are harder than you expected!

Finish Lines and Starting Lines

As we prepare to close out the end of this year, we should realize something important about endings. They really are just invitations to start over, to start again. Even that goal we might have set our sights on as The Goal – the one that means we’ve made it, or where we’ll finally say it was all worth it – isn’t the end. When we achieve it, we’ll realize that it was only just the beginning.

So celebrate your successes. Celebrate every win and every step in the right direction. How might cheering for yourself along the way change your approach to the hours and hours of work that go unseen and unnoticed by everyone else? Maybe it will make it just a little bit easier and a little bit more satisfying to show up on that starting line tomorrow.

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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