I just picked up this great book the other day, Inspired Marketing by Joe Vitale and Craig Perrine.
You know when you’re really spinning wheels and trying to make things happen, you revert to doing all sorts of things to motivate yourself?
Perhaps you go to Starbucks for a cup to get motivated and fired up. Maybe you’ll watch an inspiring movie to get upliftment. Or maybe you eat something to get your mind off the thing you’re trying to do.
And there’s nothing really wrong with any of that, and at times it may even work to get you back on track.
But here’s the interesting part: doing that you will actually reward yourself for NOT doing what you’re supposed to be doing! And it leads to you doing more of what’s not getting you any results.
You’d never admit it, and indeed you don’t mean it. But it IS the net effect.
So to put this in positive terms, here’s the better alternative:
“Reward yourself for the things that you should be doing and it will bring out the qualities that we want to see more of. It’s a way to trick yourself into becoming more successful.”
I challenge you to experiment with rewarding yourself ONLY when you do the best things you know you should be doing. I guarantee you’ll see more and better quality output and overall more satisfaction.
As they say, the best things in life are free! π
People reacted to this story.
Show comments Hide commentsChicken curry come my way when I’m a good boy π
There you go, you got it! π
This is an interesting strategy…rewarding yourself only when you are doing what you should be doing. Two things come to mind in order for someone to be able to reward themselves more often. One is discipline and the other is focus. If you are disciplined enough to stay focused on the important tasks at hand in order to move closer to attaining your goals, I would think you will be rewarding yourself more frequently than otherwise.
You’re definitely on to something there Christian. I’d say the discipline and focus come as a result of starting to reward yourself for the right things. Frequent or not, when your mind starts to link the right things with the pleasure you get as a result, discipline isn’t really necessary. That’s my 2c anyway. π
Juho