Skip to main content Skip to bottom nav

Step 3: What Types of Rewards Work Best?

Creator: @SoulfullyAButterfly

undefined

In rewarding the baby steps you take toward your goal, you can employ all types of healthy incentives, including:

  • Consumables: coffee, diet sodas, sweets (if you’re not dieting), cookies, and so on. Of course, these are stronger incentives when you are feeling more deprived.
  • Activities: watching television, attending a play, telephoning friends, getting a massage, riding a bicycle.
  • Interpersonal strokes: verbal praise, attention, affectionate touches from others.
  • Positive self-talk: Internal congratulations and affirmations, soothing praise.
  • Tokens: secondary reinforcers to be exchanged for rewards at a later time, such as chips, stars, and happy faces.

The list is endless, which is fortunate, because you can continue to bathe yourself in different types of rewards and avoid getting tired of the same ones. It should come as no surprise that what rewards one person, say, chocolate or a movie, serves as a punishment for another person.

Personal preferences must come into play here. The secret is to identify what influential rewards can modify your behavior and to create reinforcement plans that you’ll stick with for a couple of months.

In the box below, identify 3 rewards that work best for you.