The BOLD (And the Winner Is)
I just finished my quarterly planning retreat. I set aside three days each quarter in order to review, envision and prep the path for my success for the next three months. I used to do annual planning only, but this 12-week focus allows me to reset and realign before I get too off track and before I lose momentum. My planning retreat is like jet fuel for my motivation.
On day three, I focus on my Prep the Path activities—setting myself up to make my path from where I am to where I want to go easier. The excellent book Atomic Habits by James Clear outlines numerous ways to line up your environment to accomplish what you want to do and avoid old patterns.
One of the ways that I reinforce my commitment to my goals is with rewards. There is an art to establishing rewards that motivate well. I know. I’ve set up rewards that have squashed my enthusiasm flat and actually motivated me to move away from an outcome I wanted.
For the next four weeks, we will focus on the fifth principle of the Prospects of Possibility™ framework: Prep the Path. How can we create systems, gather a team and organize our lives to increase our chances for success? We prep the path.
The Whisper (Rewarding)
We have been taught to be suspicious of rewards. As I prepared to write this, I scanned a list of quotes about rewards and discovered an interesting phenomenon. Most of our collected wisdom about rewards states that the work is its own reward and that any other inducement is false and untrustworthy and fleeting. We should work for the work itself.
I do believe that. Work that is fulfilling is rewarding. We can enjoy a sense of satisfaction from a job well done that transcends any external reward.
But what if it is possible to enjoy the deep, intrinsic sort of reward AND the fun, gamified, extrinsic reward as well? That seems more powerful to me. When we do not celebrate our accomplishments, it becomes easier to dismiss them and the benefit we’ve created. Without celebration and reward, we run the risk of undermining our efforts in the future by teaching ourselves that our work doesn’t matter and that we are not really enough.
I prefer to celebrate. It makes it easier to access motivation the next time I set out to change the/my world.
Learning To Reward Myself
I began to experiment with using rewards about a year and half ago when I started using the Michael Hyatt Full Focus Planner as a daily analog tool to mark and track my quarterly goals in a way that supported my annual and 10-year goals. It also allows me to plan my days, set my intentions, highlight my priorities and journal my results.
The first time I set up my planner, I was stumped when the goal pages asked me to list the reward I would receive when I attained the goal. Reward? What was I going to use as a reward? I didn’t want to spend scads of money on toys or treats. If I really wanted something, I would just buy it, right? How would that be a reward?
I decided to try it. The first quarter I laid out rewards that were not relevant to the task, not correctly sized for the achievement and that were all or nothing.
It really didn’t work. By the third quarter of playing this way, I was frustrated enough to skip the rewards section all together.
Then I tried an experiment. I noticed that when I only listed a reward for 100% compliance with a behavior goal or 100% completion for an outcome goal, I was setting myself up to give up. As soon as I broke the chain, I stopped. And I always broke the chain. Aside from eating, sleeping, and breathing, there is NOTHING that I am going to do every day. Nothing.
Inevitably, I failed in my quest for 100% and each quarter what I had was a list of fun things I had teased myself about with no rewards to celebrate.
Percentages. Run the Percentages.
Then I hit on a solution and this has fueled my accomplishments and preserved my self-compassion over the last few iterations of quarterly planning. I list three rewards for each of the goals. For each goal, I set a reward for 50% completion, a bigger reward for 75% and a big, juicy, exciting, really-want-it goal for 100%. And they are cumulative so winning is winning big.
This has changed everything. I don’t have to wait the whole three months to begin to celebrate with rewards. I am not paralyzed when I stumble. There is always a reward to be earned even if I’m not perfect. I’ve even begun to reward myself for 95% completion on some goals.
Change Your Relationship to Your Goals
You’ve probably heard about SMART goals. This research-based approach encourages us to set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. This is sound advice that works with the way our brains are wired.
This is not what I’m talking about, though. That is how to set goals. This is about changing our relationship to our goals. By setting rewards well, we are making a fun game out of a, perhaps, daunting commitment. We are engaging our motivation in multiple ways. And we are building in the celebrations that change our relationship to the work itself and that build motivation for future endeavor.
Consider the following to plan rewards that inspire:
QUESTION: How big is the goal? How much energy will you need to expend to achieve this goal? Do you feel resistance that you will need to overcome in order to do this? How strong is that resistance? How big a difference with success with this goal make in your life?
CONSIDERATION: Set rewards that are scaled appropriately for the task(s) at hand. If you just spent six months in the arduous process of scaling Everest, you’d feel offended if someone said, “Congrats” and handed you a lollipop. At the same time, you might feel sheepish if someone threw you a ticker-tape parade for taking out the trash. Scale is important.
QUESTION: What is the unit of measure for this goal so that you can determine the percentage done? Is this a behavior goal or an outcome goal? Behavior goals involve making a commitment to a behavior (makes sense, right?). How many times will you work out and for how long? What time will you go to bed? How many pages will you read (or write) each day? An outcome goal focuses on the end result. For instance, I will publish a book. I will hike the Appalachian Trail. I will play Moonlight Sonata on the sousaphone.
CONSIDERATION: It matters here because we are calculating percentage of done. One is an easier calculation than the other. Consider, too, that you can either set your sights on the outcome or dictate the process. If you try to do both, you will end up with brittle goals.
- Set your goals
- Determine the markers for 50%, 75%, and 100% done.
- Determine a reward for each level that is scaled to the accomplishment and appropriate for the degree of completion.
- Mark your progress and celebrate at every level of achievement
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