I’ve always felt reluctant to tell people about my successes. It feels arrogant and nobody likes a bragger. But as I’ve been researching why sharing wins is important, I’ve come to see that it’s actually one of the key components of self-improvement.

Research suggests that sharing your wins can accelerate your progress on your goals. By sharing your wins, you can build confidence, strengthen relationships, develop a positive attitude, reduce stress, overcome your fear of failure, become more grateful, and have more energy to work on your goals.

Let’s dive into the details of how this all works, starting with an overview of what sharing wins means.

What it Means to Share Your Wins & How to Do It

Per Oxford Languages, to share means to “tell someone about (something, especially something personal).”

A win is “a successful result in a contest, conflict, bet, or other endeavor; a victory.”

So to share wins is to tell someone about a successful result in your endeavors. 

In other words, sharing wins is to tell others about your successes while working on your goals. 

Let’s look at a few examples of how you can do this:

• You tell your spouse about the progress you’re seeing with becoming closer with your kids.
• After reaching a new productivity milestone, you share it in your next 1-on-1 with your boss.
• You hit your goal to lose 20 pounds, so you post about it in a personal fitness Facebook group you’re in.

There are thousands of ways to share your wins. All you need is something you’ve accomplished recently and someone to share it with. 

So what does the science say about sharing wins? In this study about participation in virtual support communities and others like it, researchers found that people’s likelihood of achieving goals increases dramatically when they share their goals and successes with a group.

Now let’s dive into all of the ways that sharing wins can help you achieve your goals.

1. Revealing Your Success Builds Confidence and Self-Esteem

When I was younger I was shy about nearly everything. I had a hard time believing I was worth anybody’s time. And it was tough to think my strengths meant anything. 

Today I realize that I can do a lot more by recognizing and owning my achievements. 

Over the years I began to see that I did have strengths that were valuable to others. To have the confidence to share them with others, I had to really own who I was and what I’d accomplished.

As I began to tell others about my successes, I built more confidence in who I was. Over time, I lost the fear of being worthless. I didn’t feel so shy about asking for help or standing my ground on what was important to me.

Owning up to your wins isn’t easy. Many do it the wrong way and arrogantly put themselves above others. But it’s not about bringing others down. 

Sharing wins is all about recognizing that you’ve become better than you used to be and declaring that to the world so they can gain confidence in their ability to do the same.

These days, I’m not shy about my successes. I am still careful to not be too open about them, otherwise, I’ll seem cocky. But overall my confidence and self-esteem are significantly higher because I’ve shared my wins with others. 

If you’re scared, try starting small. Just write in your journal or the notes app on your phone about some of the things that you’re proud that you’ve done. Do that daily for a year then start posting some of them online and your confidence and self-esteem will skyrocket. 

2. Sharing Wins Strengthens Relationships, the #1 Key to Success

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Jim Rohn

This quote may seem cliche but don’t take it lightly. It’s based on science.

One study found that if a child moves to an area where 70% of their friends are wealthy, their income in adulthood will be 20% higher than if they stayed. Having friends who make more money likely means that your income will grow too.

And that’s just with money. Imagine how having happier and healthier friends can affect you also.

The deeper the connection with those friends, the higher the effect of their happiness, wealth, and health will be on your own life. Sharing wins grows that connection, which improves your life and others’ lives.

Sharing wins with others fosters a culture of winning. That culture then helps you appreciate others better as they feel more open to talking about their wins. As everybody shares successes, motivation runs high. 

In this way, sharing wins creates upward momentum for you and everyone around you. When everybody is winning and sharing it, everybody keeps winning.

This is further shown in research that author Shawn Achor shares in his book The Happiness Advantage. 

He found that the greatest indicator of a Harvard student’s happiness and success was their connections with others. In other words, when students spent time with others, they got better grades.

For you, this means that as you deepen your relationships with others, you will become happier and more successful. And one of the best ways to do that is to share wins.

3. You Develop a Positive Attitude When You Show Your Gains

Take a moment and try to find all of the green items around you right now. 

Could you now tell me, without looking, how many blue things you saw? Of course not! You’ll see whatever you’re looking for, whether that’s green things or wins.

If someone is constantly trained to see the bad in everything, it’s no surprise that they’d become a pessimist. The sad fact is that the world we live in is just this way. 

News stations get more views for bad news. Sensationalizing and exaggerating the facts gets eyeballs, so the media does it more. And have you ever been on Reddit? It’s so full of pessimists that I quit about six months ago and instantly became far happier and more confident.

What you look for is what you will find in the world. And there’s no truer place this happens than when you’re sharing wins. By telling others about your successes, you train your mind to have a winning attitude.

You start to see the good in everything, including yourself. This is another way that sharing wins boosts your confidence. 

Part of the reason you’re down all the time is that social media and the news have normalized being pessimistic about everything. You don’t struggle to have hope for the future because you’re a bad person. It’s the way the world is set up.

So get those things out of your life and start sharing your successes. Over time, you’ll see that things aren’t falling apart but that life is amazing and wonderful and that the possibilities of what you can do are nearly endless.

4. Sharing Wins Reduces Stress

Research indicates that people who share positive emotions online experience less stress than those who primarily share negativity.

When you have less stress you:

• Get better sleep
• Become physically healthier 
• Control your mood better
• Have closer relationships with your family

We’ve already seen how strengthening relationships can benefit you. But think a little more about how the other items on this list might change your life. 

If the only enhancement you saw from reducing stress by sharing your wins was better sleep, you could:

• Have more energy to get a raise or start your side hustle or to spend more time deepening your relationships
• Feel mentally and emotionally better
• Get more time throughout the day for anything you might want to accomplish

Imagine that for a moment. How would your life change if you had more time, energy, and happiness throughout your day? 

What goals and dreams could you accomplish? 

What exciting new opportunities could you finally take advantage of?

Wrapping Up

Sharing wins is a simple way to improve your life. It keeps you on track with your goals and feels amazing. Additionally, sharing wins is important because doing so can:

• Grow your self-esteem and confidence
• Strengthen social connections, which are the #1 indicator of success
• Help you develop a positive attitude and more happiness
• Reduce stress, which improves sleep, mood, energy, and more

All of this can come from the simple effort it takes to share positivity with others. 

Start small today by posting about something good you did. Your life will begin to change in little ways at first. But if you stay consistent, you’ll get into an upward spiral that will take you to places you can hardly imagine right now.