Day 14: Reward yourself

Part of being kind to yourself is to recognise your progress.  The pursuit of your goal should not be a chore, it should be more like an adventure; a voyage of discovery where the journey is to savour as much as the final outcome.  One thing you can do to help you stay on track is:

Tip 14:  Reward yourself along the way.

If you have broken your goal down into actionable steps (See Tip 4)  you should also be able to put some 'stage posts' into your plan.  These are mini-targets along the way to your main goal.  For example, if you have decided to lose 12 Kg weight over the next 12 months that equates to the loss of 1kg every month.  If you have decided that you want to achieve a qualification, you might choose the submission of each piece of written work, or the completion of a module as significant markers.   Whatever you choose, celebrate your progress by rewarding yourself.  There are three main types of rewards.  For some the actual doing of the task is reward enough.  I know people who set fitness goals and the simple act of completing a session on their training programme and the 'buzz' they get from doing so, is reward enough.  If this doesn't work for you then a second type of reward is something that is intrinsic to the goal you are working towards.  For example, imagine you have set yourself the goal of learning to sing.  You might reward yourself with going to see a professional singer perform - something that is enjoyable in itself but also an opportunity to learn.  Another version of this is to relax your rules for a short period.  A friend of mine who is an elite athlete (who also happens to love chocolate) has strict diet regime for 6 days of the week but relaxes his rules one day a week.  He doesn't binge, but relaxing the rules for a day stops him becoming resentful of the diet he has to follow to pursue his athletic goals.  Finally, there is a third type of reward which is rewarding yourself with something that is totally unconnected with your goal.  For example, if you win that big contract you treat yourself to a new outfit.  Personally, I'm not a fan of this last type of goal, I think it is much more effective to have your rewards closely connected to the goal you are pursuing, but if it works for you use it!  Rewarding yourself is being kind to yourself in the good times.