Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Rewarding Yourself

A couple of weeks ago on Weightloss Wednesday, I talked about motivation.

Today’s topic, Rewarding Yourself, ties in with motivation.

I spent this past weekend in Austria. I signed up for a spa weekend as a reward for losing weight and finishing a manuscript. At the time of departure, I’d lost 17 pounds. This happened over a period of 2 months. I was quite pleased with myself.

After enjoying a Swedish massage and the thermal pools of the Aquadome, I decided that another weekend there was in order for reaching my 30 pound goal.

Then it dawned on me (I know, duh!) that having set rewards for your milestones are a great way to keep your motivation level high. And while big rewards like a spa weekend are nice, smaller rewards for smaller goals reached are important too.

So what would be a good reward? For me, I can think of lots of things. A new music CD, a movie night with the next must-see, a special night with just my guy and me, new makeup. These are all rewards that don’t have to cost a lot of money.

I think 5 pound increments are great milestone markers. I know I get excited every time I hit that next 5 pound mark. It would be even better if I knew I’d earned a new CD or book too. So I’m going to make up my own reward system. Every 5 pound milestone gets a small reward and 30 pounds gets a big reward.

I haven’t decided on my rewards yet, though. I’ll work on it over the next couple of weeks and then share with you.

What do you think of creating a reward system? Would you create one for yourself? Do you think it would help keep your motivation level high? Would it be enough to make you stay on track?

3 comments:

Mimi Barbour said...

Hi Riley,
Loved your blogsite photo. It's great. Also decided that I needed to follow your advice about rewarding myself. I,too, have been working on losing weight...the 10lb challenge with Dr.Oz and am 5 down now. I have to lose a lb a week. So...I think I'm going to promise myself a whole bag of marshmallows when I make my goal...just kidding!
I'll give myself an editing workshop I've been wanting to take and it comes up in Nov.
Thanks for sharing...
mimi

Sage Ravenwood said...

I don't why I haven't thought of the reward system. I'm already thinking of possibilities to encourage me to get through my revisions. Thanks! (Hugs)Indigo

Shelley Munro said...

Riley, that's a great idea and perfect timing for me. It's almost summer here in New Zealand and I could use a reward system for both weight loss and writing.

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