Tiny Triumph Awards – Sidestep the brain’s negativity bias and celebrate some wins!

If you’ve read our 3 Practical Coping Strategies post   you’ll know our wonderful brains have a tendency to focus on the negative (It’s all because they’re constantly on the lookout for threats so they can keep us safe from them!). Sometimes they need some help to remember all the good stuff going on. 

We wanted to find a way to help you to tip the balance towards the positive by celebrating some wins.

But we’re not talking the big wins – you know the kinds of things people win awards for. We’re talking about the everyday little wins that are often overlooked. 

Surviving a hard day. 

Persisting in the face of obstacles. 

Remembering to rest. 

Asking for help.

Those kinds of wins.

So we created the “Tiny Triumph Awards” – a series of tiny, printable awards you can print at home (or at a copy shop) and share with your friends, family, colleagues and communities – anyone you think deserves to have their efforts acknowledged!

The A4 sheet has 9 awards on it. Six are for specific things with space for you to add more information. The final three are blank awards so you can get creative and write your own. 

Image of an A4 sheet of 9 small certificates. Half are blue and Half are yellow. All have the heading This Tiny Triumph Award Goes To: in a combination of handwritten script and typed font.

Of course, some Tiny Triumphs are actually more tremendous than tiny… 

Like our award for Parenting in a Pandemic – especially if you’ve been single parenting. The certificate may be tiny but the achievement is definitely tremendous!

And it’s important to remember that what’s no big deal for some people might be a Huge deal for others… Like Surviving a Hard Day.

Several of the awards are based on the Protective Behaviours training we run here at SFAC so you’ll also see an award for “Recognising their Early Warning Signs” and another one for “Remembering to Stop. Feel. Think. Do.” We’ll be talking more about these and what they mean on our social media and here on the website in the coming months so keep an eye out. If you’re interested in completing a Protective Behaviours Foundation Level course, send us an email at info@sfac.org.uk and we can let you know when the next one is being run.

So here is our challenge to you:

  1. Join our Subscriber Club (if you haven’t already)
  2. Go to our Free Resource Library (the password will be in your Subscriber Club welcome email), download your Tiny Triumph Award sheet and press print.
  3. Now, hold on for a minute before you start handing them out to those around you… Try something else first. 
    Can you choose or create one for you. I know… it can be hard! 

    Give it a go anyway… What tiny (or not so tiny) thing have you done recently that deserves to be acknowledged or that, when you stop and think about it, you’re proud of.

    Maybe you’ve persisted in getting up everyday during lockdown or you’ve recognised when you were feeling stressed (noticing those Early Warning Signs like changes in breathing, sweaty palms, heart rate increasing etc.) and taken action to feel safe again.
    Maybe you’ve helped someone else feel safe again… 

    Whatever it is, choose your award and write your name on it. 

    (Just to assure you you’re not in this alone, I had a go, too. You can see what I came up with below!)

  4. Ok, now choose one for someone else. Go ahead and give it to them – drop it on their doorstep or put it in the post.
  5. And, if you feel like it, snap a photo of you with your award (or your friends with theirs!) and share it with us on social media. You can tag us on instagram or Facebook and use #SFACTinyTriumphAwards in your posts. 

Done ✅

Challenge completed ✅

I think that deserves an award 😉 🏆

P.S. More awards coming soon! And we’re working on some digital versions, too.

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