How Rewards Will Fuel Your Progress

As the previous chapters have shown, developing a solid mindset is effectively setting the scene. It’s finding out why, and where, you are looking to head in your fitness journey.

To supplement this, a rewards system is absolutely crucial. What do we mean by this? Well, as we have spoken about numerous times, there will be tough times during this journey. There will be occasions where you give up the game, just because things have got a little too hot to handle. Again, this could be for a magnitude of reasons, with time and general boredom being a couple of the most usual stumbling blocks.

To navigate these obstacles, you need to devise a suitable rewards system. In other words, when the going does get tough, you need to know that you can tap into a short-term reward to fuel your motivational levels.

Sure, having those long-term goals are great, but they aren’t going to power you through your whole journey. You need something that is going to provide a reward when you complete your mini-goals, so you can kick on from there.

The difference between good and bad rewards

Something that you might have noticed through a lot of the chapters is that we hone in one some of the worst methods that people tend to adopt. In this section, we’re about to do the same.

The vast majority of people involved in fitness will reward themselves, but they’ll do it in a completely negative way. For example, they will reward themselves with a piece of cake if they exercised today.

Or, they will say that they don’t have to work out tomorrow because they ticked off so many goals today. As you can see, it’s approaches such as this which prove to be a recipe for disaster. It’s effectively going two steps back, after making that gigantic step forward.

So, how exactly should you reward yourself? Following on from the above, it should go without saying that you should avoid any food rewards like the plague. In some ways, you should stay away from fitness rewards as well – although only ones of the negative variety.

In other words, feel free to reward yourself with “positive” fitness rewards. For example, you might participate in a karate lesson after ticking off your goals for the month.

Other popular types of rewards involve clothing. As we know, this is something that can change enormously as your fitness journey gets underway. If you meet your weight-related goals, perhaps you can buy yourself a new t-shirt which correlates with your new size.

As we have alluded to throughout this guide, it’s all about seeing your life in video game format. You’ll pick up points for everything that you achieve and without these points – you’ll struggle to reach your main, end goal.

How can you put together your rewards system?

Fortunately, putting together your own rewards system is hardly going to be difficult to fathom. There’s a process to follow and this should start with outlining exactly what makes you tick.

In other words, you need to think of a list of rewards that you know will motivate you when the going gets tough. As we have spoken about in the previous section, this is all about healthy rewards – that don’t relate to food or anything else that can harm our progress.

Once you are armed with this list, it’s time to attach these rewards to your various mini-goals. By this point you will have already outlined your main goal, and your rewards system should be used to find out what you have to do to get to this.

If your main goal is to lose a total of 10kg, you might issue a reward to yourself every time you drop 2kg on the scales. This is one point where you must attach a timeframe to the goal, to avoid the temptation to float in and out of your fitness routine.

A closing note on rewards

Out of everything we look at about your mindset, there’s no doubt that this is going to be one of the easiest for you. After all, who wouldn’t want to think about all of the new clothes and other rewards that you can bring into your life – just because you are making that elusive progress with your body.

Despite the above, a surprising amount of people avoid setting rewards. It’s one of those steps that is seemingly very easy to “skip” as well – some people just don’t appreciate its importance.

Whatever you do, avoid thinking like this. If you don’t have a solid rewards system in place, all of the goals and that huge ‘why-factor’ we have looked at will be pointless. Your journey will almost definitely end prematurely.