Step 18: Rewarding in the Long Haul

One reason you can rely less on helping relationships in the long term is that support and reinforcement increasingly come from within. Support from other people fades (but never disappears) as your support for yourself blossoms.

Naturally occurring self-rewards now predominate: positive self-statements and feelings of accomplishments. The magnitude of the rewards also fades. In the early going, rewards should be immediate and intense. In the long haul, rewards should be intermittent and meaningful.

It’s been repeatedly proven that when we reward ourselves sporadically, we increase the chances that we continue our (good) behavior. Intermittent reinforcement leads to a high rate of response and intense resistance to stopping. It is, quite literally, “addictive.” Gradually go from rewarding yourself continuously to sporadically.

When she was young, my daughter once asked why I didn’t get as excited anymore that she could ride a bike without training wheels by herself. I tried to explain that once a skill is mastered, we still celebrate but we do so internally and modestly.

That’s the rule for rewards during maintenance. You begin to internalize, own, or literally become the change. Once it was outside of you as a distant goal; now, it’s part of you as your ongoing behavior. Occasional social support from others and intermittent self-affirmations keep it going strong.

How do you think you will reward yourself in the long run?