Step 7: Get Creative with Your Rewards

Use many rewards and use many types for maximum effectiveness. If you maintain your exercise regimen or healthy eating, for example, choose a reward from a rotating menu of possibilities. The menu can include any number of options, from a self-congratulatory "Excellent!" to time allotted to hang out with a friend.

Reverse the usual sequence. Most consumptive and addictive behaviors are reinforcing in the short run - the delight, the ahhh of smoking, drinking, overeating, and so forth. But in the long run these problems are quite punishing and harmful. This is what’s called the neurotic paradox: unhealthy behaviors are perversely rewarded immediately and only punished in the dim, unforeseen future. As humans, we tend to respond to those immediate effects. Reverse this sequence by reinforcing yourself immediately and potently for healthy behaviors and by avoiding any reinforcement for unhealthy behaviors.

How can you get creative with your rewards?