Rewarding your way to your goals (Part 3 of 3)

Rewarding yourself

When establishing new habits, it is easy to stay motivated at first, and then life gets in the way. Someone gets sick, you don’t sleep well, there is an extra project at work, or maybe the weather changes (sunny, snowy, windy, doesn’t really matter, does it?!). It doesn’t take much to derail a carefully thought out program.

One way to stay on track is to create measurable goals. Another path to success is to REWARD yourself for efforts.

Reward effort, not outcome

• Not feeling the love? Can’t believe you signed up for a marathon?? Just do today’s workout, or eat one healthy thing. Make one healthy choice, and then congratulate yourself on those choices. Lots of healthy choices makes for a healthy life. The road to health is a thousand rewards for a thousand great choices!

Positive self-talk

• Talk to yourself the way you would talk to your best friend.
  • “Great job getting your shoes on! Let’s just try to get to the corner! I love your effort today. Nice attitude!”
• Create an ongoing list of successes, starting from getting out of bed successfully.
• Berating yourself rarely leads to success. Skip the punishment. Focus on positive talk and rewards.

Acknowledge milestones

• Remember when you learned to walk? (Reasonably, that answer is no.) Your parents likely cheered you on, recorded the moment, and called others to share your success. Generally, we are no longer clapping when you walk, but life should include clapping. What can we clap about for you today?
  • Maybe you increased your distance, or tried TWO new recipes this week. Maybe you wrote the blog post your web-guru insisted is imperative. NOTE that accomplishment!
  • At the very least, acknowledge your successes to yourself. Better still, share your successes with your friends, and congratulate them on their accomplishments.

Put your rewards on your screensaver

• Your rewards should be personal to you. Maybe you are working toward something tangible (new shoes!) or an event (a movie! a vacation!). Place a picture of your reward on your screen saver, your fridge, or next to your credit card.

 

Find a way to stay motivated by noticing your attitude, efforts, and your accomplishments. Positive focus, positive self-talk, positive outcomes. You got this! And if you want help, contact me. I’ll help you reach your goals!