My Rewards Program
Why Rewards?
Because sometimes that warm fuzzy feeling of having done the right thing just isn’t enough on its own.
When you’re looking at behavior modification, people really aren’t that much different from animals. Repetition and motivation are the keys to success.
I’m a fan of positive reinforcement in pet training, so I’m going to opt for that route with my own self-training as well.
Reward Rules
Any reward system should:
- encourage good behavior
- discourage bad behavior (without punishing it)
- be flexible
- encourage long-term repetition
If a system doesn’t do all of these things, then it probably won’t work as well. After all, I fancy myself smarter than a dog, so I probably need a tighter training program.
Behavior
Step one of any program is to decide what behaviors you want to modify and why.
For myself, I’m building the rewards program to encourage myself to work out and keep working out.
I know I feel better when I’m exercising, I know I want to have a tighter, healthier body, and I know how important it is to get started on this NOW.
Knowing hasn’t exactly translated into instant success, though.
In addition to knowing which behavior I want to encourage (could be working out, could be writing, could be anything, really) … I’m taking this opportunity to discourage some negative behaviors that I want to curtail AND to encourage some other behaviors as well.
- I NEED to work out consistently.
- I want to cut back on drinking. I know, I know, it’s fashionable for writers to drink–I like to buck the trends here.
- I want to cut back on eating out. Granted, it’s not like we go crazy with this, but even one eat out a week is a significant cash drain, and we were getting pretty close to two per week.
- I want to encourage myself to read more, without feeling like I’m being frivolous with spending money on non-essential items.
Rewards
The solution is to turn it into a game. Games work because they offer rewards. Even an intangible achievement is something to aim at.
- One dollar is awarded for every day that I work out. Working out is at least 15 minutes of exercise. Usually, this should be a P90X dvd, but it can be things like bike rides if I need a break from the tv. Also, it’s incredibly beautiful outside right now.
- For every seven consecutive days, a medium additional reward is given. This could be eating out once, or a video game if Steven and I pool our reward.
- For every month with no missing days, a very large reward will be given, to be determined at the time of achievement.
- Every missed day is a missing dollar and a break of any pre-existing streak.
- There will be no streak-breaking penalty if a day is missed for valid reasons, but no dollar will be awarded for that day.
This pool of reward money can be spent on anything I want, but most specifically, I cannot have alcohol I do not “pay” for from my pool. My average drink would be a $2 drink, so if I want a glass of wine after dinner, I’d better make sure I have the cash for it.
Also, my cash pool can be used to buy books for my kindle. =]
Right now, the “cash pool” is figurative. I keep score on paper rather than dealing with actual dollars.
Success
So far, it’s working out pretty well. I’ve already hit my first streak reward (Final Fantasy XIII-2, here we come!) and I’m finding that the desire to keep my streak going is enough to at least get me out on my bike when normally I would have convinced myself that I could take a day off without hurting anything.
You
Any of you ever tried anything like this? Did it work for you?
12 Comments
I’ve always been fascinated by this sort of thing. I think I might actually steal your system- particularly since tomorrow starts a new month. Plus, accountability always helps, right?
I am constantly tweaking this system. I wanted to eat out yesterday, but didn’t because I hadn’t hit my streak yet. :D I also give myself creative dollars as well as the workout dollars (days spent writing or finishing art pieces).
It’s not perfect, but it’s working really well.
Also? I love lists. *grin*
For me, this works because I love questing and really love currency. I mean it- PVP and raiding in WoW were at a sweet spot for me when killing bosses or fighting on flags filled my bags with a great variety of different currency tokens.
In fact, I think I have a couple bags of wooden tokens somewhere. I’m beginning to have an interesting idea.
Thanks for the blog fodder :D
OoOoh, tokens. That sounds like EXTRA fun! Much more physical feeling than just slashes on a paper!
If I can’t find my wooden tokens, I’ll just spend some early points on… buying tokens!
*laugh* They make some cheap glass “drops” that you can buy at craft stores … I wonder if I could find a pair of jars to keep them in. *hmmmm*
Actually, I have three different colors (blue, green, red) of those glass drops. Also I have a surprising number of poker chips; any/all of those could fill in I suppose!
[...] the imitable but insuperable Tami Moore pointed out in her blog post today, human beings are creatures of A) habit, B) reward. That is to say, if I keep doing something again [...]
I have, for various things, and it usually, eventually fails for me. However, I did keep it going for around a year or so once. Hopefully, you’ll have a better go at it.
All of that just reminded me of this talk by Dan Pink (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc) and I wonder if you couldn’t incentivize it further by trying to introduce some kind of mastery concept. Not drinking might be tricky to do this with, but not eating out could mean learning how to cook increasingly more difficult things. Or maybe instead of “just working out”, be building yourself up to climb a mountain or run a marathon. To tie it back to your game motif, leveling up means you get to fight harder bosses and get better loot.
Additionally, I ran across an article today that talked about how to remain focused in an increasingly distracting world. The thought was to create 2 lists. The first is a list of things you want to focus on. Most people have these. The second is a list of things you’re going to outright ignore. Now, the article was more or less about how to keep your blackberry from running your life, but I wonder if you couldn’t do something similar here. I don’t often think of a “things I’m going to ignore list” until something is distracting me enough (and then it’s a one-item list).
Awesome video. Man, I love the RSAnimate stuff. Very interesting, too, with a lot of things I could see improving the “quality of life” here at work, if we could make them fly.
Do you still have a link to that article? I’d be interested in reading it.
Mastery is actually inherent in both of the things I’m currently rewarding myself for (writing and working out). Both are things that require practice to get better, it’s just the choice between bike riding and My Little Pony episodes that I need to break. *grin*
The second article is here: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2009/05/two-lists-you-should-look-at-e.html?awid=9096134605609987456-3271. To be honest, I didn’t think that much of the article beyond the “things to ignore” list. There are quite a few good posts on that site, however.
I guess what I meant was more trying to create rewards in terms of the exercise (to give it some kind of purpose that escalates as your mastery improves). My issue with exercise is that I have no end goal in mind (nor an escalating end goal) and my issue with rewards has always been that I have the power to give myself those rewards at any time without doing any of the work and don’t often have the willpower to keep myself from doing so.
As an example, when I went to the gym, it was for the sake of going to the gym or “being healthy” and not “so I could do X or Y”. If, on the other hand, I could get psyched about running a half-marathon for some charity, I would be more likely to continue running a few miles every day and training.
Yes! Very good example, and you’re right – a tangible goal is better than “get healthier”.