[How-To-Series002]Rewards and Punishment_Chelsea

                        Day 70: Rewards by eyesogreen licensed by creative commmons from Flickr

Human minds are flexible, transient, changing, windy... in one word: not reliable.

You may just find this blog, and feel motivated on the spot: Hey, that seems cool! I want to try too!!! But after spending 5 minutes wandering around, another voice kicks in: ugh, that is just not my style. I won't follow through anyway...

This is normal. Completely normal and acceptable.

That's why we need to generate plans and strategies while our motivation is still high (enough to push us to do the hard work), which will then deal with the low-motivated ourselves in the close future.

The plan is called: Dog training...



Kidding. Of course it's reward&punishment.

After a brief discussion, we have the following plan:

(1) Pair up with someone you trust. Loner, find your parents, boy/girl friend, friends, roommates, coworkers, ... anyone you can trust and feel comfortable with. (Completely loner?! let's deal with "why you are a completely 'loner' first, which is more fundamental and crucial.)

(2) Make commitment with him/her: if I miss this week's assignment by the deadline (following Monday 8am EST), I owe you $5. If allows, literally give it in cash. Remote setting? keep track in a "shame" post.

(3) Rewards: otherwise, if you made it by the deadline, this $5 is your guilt free money for one particular goal you always want to have, but feel silly. For example, I love Chai Latte. But $5 for a 12oz drink? Not rational at all compared to my income (ughhh). But think about it, if I can make progress in the long run for writing and communication (or say, forging a long term habit and self-control capability), $20 per month is worth invested for making yourself happy and confident!

In sum,

Find someone;
If you make it to deadline (the following Monday 8am EST) by finishing the assignment (for now, 2 exercises from scientific/non-scientific templates), spend $5 guilt-free in your own way;
If you fail, no excuses, the other part get $5 in cash, or at least mark in the "shame" post (publicly) for future sum. No negotiation further.

In the next post, I will set up the format of Toolbox/database.