I was listening to the radio on the way back from swimming this a.m. and they were talking about setting goals for fitness (and of course they also meant weight loss) and how you should reward yourself if you met your goal for that week (for example).

I couldn’t help but think about that and wonder if that isn’t also potentially negative.

Let’s say your goal was to go to the gym 3 times this week or to write 3 articles this week.

And let’s say you set your reward as buying a new book.

What if your child gets sick? As a result you’re only able to go to the gym 2 times and only wrote 2 articles.

If that’s above your norm I would say that you achieved a whole lot, wouldn’t you?

But, because you set yourself up to HAVE to go 3 times and write 3 articles in order to get the book, you cannot have that reward.

Doesn’t that mean you “failed”? At least to your subconscious mind? That puts a bummer on your processing doesn’t it?

Instead of being excited that you achieved that much, you’re beating yourself up for not achieving everything.

I think that, perhaps, rewards do not really add anything to your process. Your satisfaction should be in doing more than you have before.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.

Terrie