Micro-Moments of Positivity

The frequency of your successes is more important than the size. (BJ Fogg, Tiny Habits)

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Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“Why is the frequency of successes more important than the size?”

“When acknowledged and celebrated, every success, even tiny ones, produces a pleasant feeling. ‘Acknowledged and celebrated’ is key here because, by default, they usually pass us by unnoticed. In the context of habit creation, this can be used to enforce a habit. However, this extends beyond habit creation, into the realm of well-being.

There’s a conceptual model I like from Barbara Fredrickson’s book Love 2.0: Micro-Moments of Positivity. Acknowledged and celebrated successes produce micro-moments of positivity. Taken individually, they may not seem like much. However, over the course of a day, they compound.

All feelings are temporary. 
If you have a big success in a day, you feel good for a little while, and then you’re back to baseline. 
If, however, you have a big number of small successes, each of them makes you feel good for a little while, and their effect adds up. 

We can think of it in terms of density [<link; short read]. The higher density of micro-moments of positivity over the course of a day, the more powerful the effect. 

You can produce such micro-moments of positivity in various ways: Celebration, Gratitude, Love, contemplation of Beauty, Play.”

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