Rewards are an interesting concept. You reward yourself on a job well done. A job can be something like passing a test or class, completing a project, earning a promotion, maintaining a healthy dieting, or adopting a permanent exercise program.
How often do you strive for a lifestyle change and support that with a reward? Or, do you find that you give rewards for just getting through the day without making any healthy changes in your lifestyle?
Surely you’ve noticed the trend in rewarding kids for finishing their grade level or being on the soccer team — stuff that should, by my reckoning, be reward enough. Rewarding kids for showing up, regardless of what they learn or how much they excel, teaches them they “deserve” reward and recognition regardless of effort. It doesn’t teach or inspire them to excel and do the work or join the team for the benefit of what hard work gives them. When everyone gets a “ribbon” for being part of the sports or performance event the shine for first place isn’t as bright.
As adults, are we doing ourselves any more service by rewarding ourselves for right living and mastering our habits and mind than we are teaching our kids by rewarding them for showing up? I’m thinking not. That self-indulgence of rewards can be the slippery slope to problems like alcoholism, obesity, and sloth. And those problems have their respective problems that can cascade out of control.
I am an advocate for rewards to encourage progress on long projects and hard challenges, just not an advocate of rewards for the sake of rewards.
Change isn’t always easy. Even when you know what the benefit and value of the change are, you might be hard pressed to make that change. Changing habits can be even harder than changing favorite old clothes that “are just getting comfortable”. Or, the change might be so massive you can hardly imagine accomplishing it, which is when breaking it into bite-size stages/chunks is in order.
I’m all about bribery, in the right situation. I think of rewards and bribery as being at least related, if not the same thing. I think the two situations mentioned above are cases in which bribery is good, vital even. The trick with bribery, I mean rewards, is that you want it to encourage progress and not undermine your ultimate success. For example, when losing weight or learning to cut a food item from your diet, rewarding yourself with food, especially a food containing the item you are learning to avoid, can be a bad idea. Maybe a really bad idea.
Instead, set rewards that don’t involve the thing you are modifying. And, set rewards for yourself all along the way. As you reach specific milestones, reward yourself with something that’s meaningful to you. Give yourself a “grand” reward for yourself when you reach the final goal. Align the rewards with your goal and desired changes. That helps boost you along the path to success, and it also supports your new habit or ultimate change. That helps cement the permanence of the change.
An interesting thing about rewards and bribes is that they have to be more meaningful than the temptation that comes along to pull you off track, distract you from your goal, and tempt you back to your old patterns and habits. When you get to that decision crossroads of “stay on track with the goal and the reward” or “give into temptation and the old habit” you want that goal and reward to be so big and strong and enticing that there is no contest as to the right decision, no more than a second of thought as to the right action. The right action should always be for the reward and goal. And, no fair taking the reward before you’ve earned it!
Even with strong reasons to change and with big rewards and bribes, sometimes those old habits and patterns win out, even if only momentarily, when we come to a decision point and are tempted. Here the trick is to be easy on yourself for falling to temptation, and get back on track as quickly and nimbly as possible. Being human, mistakes happen. Get over it. Be kind to yourself. In other words, don’t beat yourself up. Make reparations to the goal and yourself, and get back on the path of change.
There are three things I’ve found that help me when setting a new goal:
1. Make it, or the reason for it, so powerful that all your senses feel either the pain of the thing you are changing from strongly, or the joy of the thing you are changing to intensely.
2. Keep an image of the goal in front of you as much as possible — a big picture of it or the powerful sense of it should be omnipresent.
3. Do one simple thing at a time.
A few common reasons I hear people say they don’t want to change a habit or way of living are:
1. I don’t want to feel deprived….
2. It’s too hard….
3. But, I really like….
4. I don’t have time, “X” is more important to me….
5. I’ve tried and failed every time, so why bother trying again.
6. It’s the holidays, I’ll start/restart my health regime in January.
Those are mindset problems. Those excuses or rationales can be reprogrammed by updating your mindset and accepting better for yourself.
We humans have such a talent for justifying our habits and patterns. Maybe it’s fear of the unknown that keeps you stuck in your old patterns and ways of thinking. It could be laziness that traps you. Accepting less than what you can be or deserve is sad, and in my experience it’s also short-sighted thinking.
Everyone deserves to live joyful, energetic, healthy lives. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to be the best you can be. Longevity in the US had been going up, until 2008. What changed? The sedentary lifestyle that’s become the “American Way” is hitting people where it hurts — in their overall health. Infant mortality has continued to decline so the longevity drop is due to deaths in older people due to “age-related” ailments such as Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure, kidney disease, flu and pneumonia. These are all avoidable ailments.
And for those not dying from “age-related” ailments, obesity-related health issues are detracting from your quality of life. Those are also avoidable issues.
It “just” takes a change of lifestyle. It takes a change in mindset. Since you are going to live for many more years to come, don’t you want to live as vibrantly and healthfully as possible? Wouldn’t a steady supply of energy and joy be a great way to live so you can be active and accomplish the myriad things that interest you?
Step up to wanting more for yourself. Avoid being a burden in your later years. Update your mindset to see that while you understand the new way may be hard, the present way is unpleasantly hard. Then create a rewards system that supports your change and new lifestyle. You’ll be glad to live a stronger life for many years to come.
One way to learn to master the change in your life is to hire a coach. That’s how athletes make it to the Olympics and you can make it vibrantly to “old age” – or be younger, more joyous, and energetic next year. Let me be that coach for you.