Do you ever feel like sometimes it’s the small stuff as much as the big stuff that makes all the difference in life? Hey guys, Kate here - and today’s post is one I’ve been really excited to write for awhile.

Over the past year and change, I’ve noticed what a huge difference little victories have made in my life. Today I’m talking all about the power of taking small steps in the right direction, plus I’m sharing an exclusive preview of my new single, “French,” which is all about the power of little victories and comes out this Friday!

First, a little bit of background for context: If you don’t know me as a musician, I’ve been making records and writing music professionally for about the past 14 years. So crazy to say that! It’s been an incredible journey and I still can’t believe sometimes that I get to make music for a living.

When I started writing my new single, “French,” I knew I wanted to write a song about the time I spent living in Paris last year and how it helped me change and grow personally (you can see my Paris apartment tour here and read all about the top 6 things I learned living abroad here). I also knew the song would be about taking small steps in the right direction, which is something I’m a big believer in.

So with that said, here are 3 steps to start celebrating Little Victories and letting them work for you. This post is also kind of a ‘behind the song’ post, because this subject is exactly what “French” is all about.

1. Learn To Look For Little Victories

Little Victories can come in any form - to me, a little victory is pretty much anything that, no matter how small or obscure, feels like it’s helping you move in the direction you want to go.

I’ve talked a lot about celebrating little victories in language learning (more on all my language learning recommendations here), and I think it’s extremely crucial in any endeavor to first learn how to recognize them.

It seems like in the age of social media, we tend to get so caught up in drama and gravitate toward what went wrong before we focus on what went right. As perfectionists, (I shared all about overcoming perfectionism here) it’s super easy to put all our energy into the things we didn’t do well enough, and the stuff we want to improve. But a lot of times, focusing on the negative just makes us feel worse about ourselves and we don’t actually get any better.

As soon as I started slowing down, trying to be more present and really paying attention, I started to notice the small steps I was taking in the right direction, sometimes without even consciously meaning to. And once you’re on the lookout for little victories, they start to show up everywhere.

A little victory could be the first time you hung a picture up in your new apartment by yourself. It could be finding a good parking spot before a meeting you were stressed about. It could be noticing that today was the first day you didn’t stalk your ex’s insta and didn’t even think about it. ANYTHING. It might sound silly, but in my experience acknowledging this stuff can build an amazing amount of confidence and self-reliance over time.

2. Write Down Little Victories And Remind Yourself They Happened

I never used to make time to reflect on a regular basis, but ever since I started taking the time to write down my wins, big or small, on a weekly or even monthly basis it’s created a huge shift for me.

Recognizing little victories in the moment while they’re happening is huge, but it’s also huge to remind yourself they happened. In the age of getting a million phone notifications a minute, we tend to forget stuff very quickly - especially if it’s something positive. It seems like our brains are constantly on the lookout for the next thing to get anxious about, and if we don’t write down our small wins, they’re likely to fall by the wayside.

Keep a journal or use your planner to write down your wins, no matter how small, at the end of every week or month. Whenever you start to feel yourself spiraling into the bummer mindset that everything is falling apart, go back and read your journal of little victories. For me, it helps me immensely to remember that no matter how crazy life gets, these small steps have me headed in the right direction.

3. Know That Little Victories Can Be Totally Insignificant To Everyone But You

Almost all of my little victories are things that no one else notices. They might be the smallest, dumbest stuff to someone else. They don’t necessarily change my life all on their own. They do not cause me to win the lottery or get a number one song or magically move on from that difficult thing I was struggling with. It’s less about the events themselves and more about the sum of them and most of all, the practice of noticing and celebrating them.

Little victories can have a massive impact because they teach us that any big change we want to make in our lives is made up of a trillion tiny steps and tiny changes over time. Once we acknowledge that we’re taking those steps, however tiny they may be, we start to believe we can actually make the big change or reach the big goal. And once we believe in our ability to change our lives, we start subconsciously taking more steps in the right direction, and so on and so forth.

“French” is about the day that I realized I was good enough at speaking French to be able to talk about some difficult experiences in my life and career. And for some reason, talking about those experiences in another language healed something in me. It did not fix it or magically make it go away - but the day I realized I could ‘talk shit’ in French and tell this story, I got a little bit better. And I realized that’s how every big change happens - by getting a little bit better, bit by bit.

So here is an exclusive sneak peek snippet of “French,” out everywhere this Friday 11/22!