Do you reward yourself? Do you make your new habits easy?
So, the question to ask yourself is, do you reward yourself? When was the last time you did it?
Earlier in my life, I used to underestimate the importance of rewards. I used to think rewards are ways to recognize the best and encourage them to perform better next time.
We do the hard and smart work to achieve an external reward directly or indirectly. The award may be to get good marks in the immediate test, good performance in office work, or completing a project and receive external appreciation.
Later I figured out that this benefit of rewarding can be applied on a personal level even if you are not the best person of the herd, in order to achieve your personal milestones. You can keep yourself motivated on a daily and long-term basis.
Let’s understand this from the viewpoint of Ali Abdaal — We wait for the motivation to strike first and then start the work. But it’s a myth. This way very few tasks are started and out of them, very few are accomplished.
James Clear in his book Atomic Habits also said that we should be able to see or visualize some immediate small success on the very first action that actually fills up for striking the motivation to accomplish the rest of the part. That part is known as a cue of motivation that triggers to complete the work.
So next time when you repeat it, you know you are going to receive the same reward. Hence it becomes satisfying. They form an endless cycle that is running every moment you are alive.
Hence, if the result takes time to come on your action, you substitute the same by rewarding yourself. The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue.
When I wanted to start reading, the book would take longer to finish. There is no immediate feedback. And that’s the reason many people including earlier me, start reading but drop due to delayed results. And many such other habits, where the response is delayed.
If final outcome of our efforts is delayed, we lose the motivation to continue as we don’t see immediate results.
Hence the idea of rewarding yourself is to shorten the feedback look. It’s simple when you make an action/change if you see immediate feedback/result.
After knowing this I changed my method, I started setting reading 5 pages and after that watched my fav. comedy show. And that worked out. My mind would attach reading 5 pages with the reward of watching the show or any reward which I decide. This way I built started building reading habits.
Let’s look at the other side, what if I would have rewarded myself. Unknowingly I would have failed to build a good long-term reading habit as the reward of long-term habits is delayed in most cases. And would have ended up being addicted to not-so-good habits where there is an instant pleasure but not much fruitful.
Now let’s have a few other examples: When you eat your favorite dish, you feel satisfied as that’s an immediate response which you can feel. After the workout in the gym, you feel tired that improves you, that’s an immediate response which you can feel. Your mind wants to repeat those cues to receive the reward attached to the cue.
Motivation is based on small successes. It’s not a feeling but the result of a small action that triggers the cue and leads to a response. Hence rewarding small success simply catalyzes the process.
Committing Socially to doing something and accomplishing it and receiving a good social response is also a great example of this, where you have an external audience’s response as your reward. This works best for today’s age internet creators’ community.
We continue and love doing the things where we see the immediate results as we feel satisfied with them. It’s always best to reward yourself and help yourself to make sure to keep loving what you work on.
