Call it what you will, the work-life balance or simply a reward for the time at the grindstone, but self-reward is an important part of a well-rounded lifestyle, and it’s important to keep you focused on the work that you do.
Regardless of what it is that you choose to be your thing, as long as it’s a healthy and positive reward, then its worth keeping it’s as a means to elicit the best from yourself. This article provides some insights and ideas as to why this process of self-reward is going to be essential for your best performance both at work and beyond.
Internal rewards
This is your own personal conversation that you have with yourself and will go a long way to determining how you deal with both failure and success. Being able to internally acknowledge your hard work and achievements is a vital part of then doing this work again and keeping achieving. Try to congratulate yourself immediately for good works, and then it will become an entrenched process.
External rewards
Being able to do something special for yourself is key to continuing to achieve. It’s about having standards for yourself and then being able to reward yourself with something that you enjoy for attaining and sustaining these standards is important. Whether it be at work or in your personal life, acknowledging your arduous work, your continuous attempt at improvement must be part and parcel of your life process. From your getting sports tickets to watch your favourite team to a night out with friends and family or simply that first coffee of the day, being able to reward yourself is proven to make a huge difference to your daily outlook. Eat your favorite snack, take that break, and binge-watch the series you’ve been missing. If you’ve earned it, then you should be living the life you want.
Why a change in mindset is needed
The positive reinforcement that the self-reward elicits is one of the most powerful motivating factors or features of modern work and is arguably the only way through what is a tough living environment. In a fast-paced business world, we are all too often caught up in the reasons for failure, and those who spend too much time on these postmortems of past mistakes are unlikely to take advantage of the opportunities in the present and possibilities of the future. The other aspect to keep in mind is that immediate or instant internal rewards are one of the best ways to keep a positive outlook on life. The brain produces positive emotions associated with your success. It then becomes a natural process of performance and reward, as the brain then looks to repeat and improve the experience of satisfaction and reward from hard work.
One of the best ways to keep the rewards ongoing and initiate the change in mindset that this requires is to start off with the trivial things daily, find the three things that you have done well during the day, and congratulate yourself. It’s only through such positive self-affirmation that we will attain and sustain our true potential. So, pat yourself on the back and keep doing what you are.
