"I Deserve This" Using a Reward System to Derail Yourself

No matter what our goals are, be it trying to save money, get organized or lose weight, we have three little words we use to derail ourselves more often than not.

"I deserve this" I worked hard today I deserve this drink, I lost 5 lbs or I was "good" all week so I deserve to have this cookie, cake or whatever it is you are trying to talk yourself into, I save $100, I deserve this new gadget, widget etc.

We seem to set ourselves up for failure more often than not by judging ourselves as good or bad and then rewarding ourselves with things we want but think we shouldn't have. How many times have you said "I was bad today, I had a donut." Or " I was bad today I went on a shopping spree and blew more than I wanted to spend"

Instead of being bad or good or talking yourself into something you promised you wouldn't do, own it instead. You're not bad because you wanted that bowl of ice cream today, you don't have to tell yourself you deserve to have this because you did some other menial task. You just wanted it so you had it. I think a lot of the reason people fail in trying to have a healthier lifestyle is the fact that they use it as another reason to beat themselves up or see themselves as a failure. They set up unrealistic goals for themselves and deny themselves things they love. If you want a donut, then by all means have one. If you want a bowl of ice cream work it into your days calories, if you go over your calorie goal today, no big deal, you'll do better tomorrow. The world won't end because you did something you weren't supposed to, in fact no one but you knows it was a taboo thing to begin with.

The worst thing that will happen is you don't reach your goal that much sooner, you put it off for a little longer. It's really just a matter of delayed gratification, you have what you want now and put off what your goals are until later or reach your goal and then have what you want.

As I become older I am finding that the first true steps to a healthier lifestyle isn't losing weight or getting fit. It's learning to love yourself for who you are. This doesn't mean that it's OK to let yourself go and stop taking care of yourself because you still want to be the healthiest version of you, you can be. It means no longer putting yourself down for things that go wrong, no longer finding a fault with yourself because we are all only human. Know that we all will have good days and bad days, we'll have days we are so focused on our goals that we can almost see them and then there will be days where we just don't even want to get out of bed. Those are the days we need to love ourselves a little bit more and take time to take care of ourselves just like we would our child or a friend.

When I set out to write this article I thought it would go in a completely different direction than it did. I like the direction it ended up taking though. I hope that you also enjoy it.