Small Habits for a Big Life by Rebecca Ray

Author:Rebecca Ray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2022-06-08T01:36:06+00:00

Let’s look at how rewards worked for Sarah. Sarah didn’t enjoy studying. The act of studying was important to her overarching goal of having a career that she was passionate about but studying itself was not a reward. Because she didn’t like it, we could not rely on the habit of studying to be reinforcing. Instead, when Sarah started dismantling her procrastination habit in favour of replacing it with studying, three extrinsic rewards were introduced. The first reward was four squares of dark chocolate with almonds through it – Sarah’s favourite kind of chocolate. She ate these squares throughout the study hour. The second reward was the satisfaction of a timer. Sarah purchased a one-hour hourglass timer and placed it on her desk. The final reward was – you guessed it – Netflix! After the hour was up, Sarah moved to the lounge, switched on the TV and grabbed her phone. Eventually, she found that the satisfaction of getting her study done meant that she enjoyed her TV time more, and that it had flow-on effects to reduce her time scrolling on her phone. She also experienced a deep sense of relief from the guilt of not studying that had been plaguing her when she was procrastinating, and better sleep, too! The rewards for Sarah’s new way of being had become intrinsic.

Make sure the reward happens quickly after your new routine or behaviour so that your brain begins reinforcing this new workable and helpful set of actions. The reason that this is important is that your brain craves the reward that self-sabotage has been giving you. Think about the craving for relief of whatever discomfort your self-sabotage has been helping you avoid. Your success at overcoming self-sabotage to create new habits dramatically increases when you plan for the cravings to continue, but prepare to meet them in a different way – as opposed to hoping the cravings will disappear, being unprepared for them, and then having them take over when they show up.

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