Let's face it.......who doesn't like a reward? As humans we are hard wired to crave a reward for our actions, it's just part of who we are. Most people see this as a negative however I am going to show you how you can use it as a positive. When trying to create habits it can be a tricky process. None of us are innately motivated to go for a walk in the peeing rain and wind simply to hit our steps goal for the day, if you are hats of to you! So how can we get around this? Well for example I am much more motivated by the thought of a Little Fitzroy flat white than a walk. I need to do the walk and I want the coffee, how do I win?- Do both! My 'reward' for the walk is the coffee- simple right? There is lot's of aspects of our life we can use this in. Want the new Gymshark set or a cool pair of Bose headphones? Set a target of attending the gym say 3 days a week for 6 weeks. If you hit this you reward yourself. The important thing with this is twofold: 1- That the habits aren't overly destructive- A giant donut as reward for every single gym session probably isn't ideal. 2- That we get in the habit of 'punishing' ourself simply to earn a reward- There is nothing wrong with having a donut just for the sake of it every now and then. With this in mind one thing I want to touch on briefly is having process oriented goals. You will notice in the above example I don't say 'when you lose X weight' or 'when you lift X weight'. This is because unfortunately we can't control whether we achieve those things. Instead, I prefer process based goals. These are basically the things you need to do to help achieve those numerical goals above. For weight loss this may be: -Hit my step goal. -Stay within my calorie target. -Eat 2x my bodyweight in protein. -Be in bed by 10pm. See how these are all things(relatively) within our control? Process goals and reward structures. Game changers imo.
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