We've personally used this reward / incentive system to shorten the time it takes to reach our fitness goals, drastically improve our personal lives, and to break some bad habits that stand in the way of reaching our goals.

How to Create Incentives and Disincentives to Help You Reach Your Fitness Goals

How this System Can Help you Reach your Diet and Fitness Goals or Any Other Goal You May Have

We created a reward / incentive system to put an end to bad habit patterns, help us be more proactive, and be more effective in life. It’s a very simple system that will help you in almost any aspect of discipline and goal attainment, but please don’t take it lightly. It works. It works for whatever goals you may have in any area of your life. But for the purposes of this article, let’s focus on your fitness goals.

We humans are designed to more toward pleasure and away from pain. It’s a very simple concept. We like what feels good, and hate what doesn’t.

The Reward / Incentive System utilizes this basic human tendency and helps dramatically change your behavior, your habit patterns, your motivation levels, etc. If you want to reach your diet / fitness goals, you’ll need to change your behaviors, your habit patterns, and get more motivated. Click here to read tips for getting and staying motivated.

Here’s how it the system works:

First, set realistic fitness goals (see our tips on setting fitness goals). The keyword here is REALISTIC. Everyone who is overweight wants to get to their ideal weight RIGHT NOW. But you have to set a goal that is realistic and believable. Otherwise, you're just going to get frustrated and quit.

Once you have set your fitness goals, and you know what it is you want, implement the Reward / Incentive System. This is an effective carrot and stick approach to help you get from where you are to where you want to be. Let’s break it down.

You want to reward good behavior and the accomplishments of your goals. This is critical to your fitness success. It’s positive reinforcement. It not only works for dogs, it works for us as well.

The idea is twofold:

1) To program yourself to continue to strive toward your goals. Reward the effort. Reward the accomplishment (however small). Celebrate your successes. You’ll lose faith in yourself if you don’t.

2) Put it on yourself and create disincentives to losing your fitness disciplines.

The Reward Aspect of the System:

You want to reward yourself for your discipline and you want to celebrate your successes on the road toward your fitness goals. So, make a mental list of ways in which you can reward your accomplishments.

Some examples of using the reward aspect of the system:

-- If part of your fitness goal is that you join a local fitness club (see our tips for finding a fitness club or gym that's right for you) and you manage to get to the gym on the days that you need to, reward yourself periodically.

-- If your goal is to start jogging in the early morning hours, and it is hard for you to even get out of that warm bed, reward yourself periodically for getting up and going for that jog.

-- If your goal is to lose 50 pounds in a reasonable time frame, set up “reward markers” or “credits” for every 10 pounds you lose. Lose 10 pounds, reward yourself. Lose another 10 pounds, reward yourself. Lose the 50th pound, REALLY reward yourself.

-- If you are training to run a marathon, set up "reward markers" or "credits" for every so many miles you have run in your training. For example, after you have run 10 miles for the first time, reward yourself. Do the same after you have run 15 miles for the first time, etc.

Creating Disincentives

You want to put it on yourself if you don’t follow through on our fitness commitments. Some may refer to it as “punishment,” but that’s a strong word that can de-motivate you.

But you have to set up self-imposed negative consequences if you lose your discipline for your health and fitness routine. The idea here is to discourage yourself from doing it again, not to beat yourself up over it.

You’re going to make mistakes. You might temporarily lose your resolve. It’s all part of the human condition. That’s why you don’t want you to be overly critical of yourself if you don’t do your disciplines with your fitness routine every single day. But, on the other hand, you have to train yourself to know that there will be a negative consequence if you don’t. Otherwise, you will run the risk of allowing “falling off the wagon” to become a habit. And once it becomes a habit to lose your discipline, then it becomes a lifestyle.

You can’t afford to let that happen if you are going to make your health and fitness goals a reality!

So, put it on yourself if you get lazy and avoid doing what you should be doing with your fitness routine. Just as you reward yourself with incentives when you accomplish something with your health and fitness goals, the flip side is you want to make sure that there is a disincentive for lack of discipline.

Here are some examples of a disincentive system that has worked for us:

-- If you start eating junk food or too many sweets such as candy bars when you know it will keep you from reaching our fitness goal, you might take away television for one night.

-- If you avoid working out for an extended period of time because you simply don’t feel like it, you might take away movie night for one week.

You have to make it hurt a little if you don’t do what you know you should do. And the way to send the message to yourself is to take away something you enjoy if don’t do what needs to be done to reach your fitness goals.

It may help if you have a supportive person who can help enforce the disincentives.

The punishment should fit the crime. You don’t want to chop your hand off if you get soft and eat a Snickers bar. And you don’t want to take away all your hobbies for one month if you miss a workout on a single day.

The idea of creating disincentives is not trying to create some sort of hardcore fitness bootcamp that feels more like a prison run by sadistic guards waiting for you to slip up. It’s not about creating a system that makes you hate fitness. It’s about tough love. It’s about loving yourself enough to make sure you reach your fitness goals.

The idea with this reward / incentive system is to impress upon your mind that you are serious about your fitness goals. You are training your mind and brain that you will celebrate and reward your successes, and you will make it hard on yourself (temporarily) if you don't do what you know you have to do in order to reach your fitness goals.

Related Mind Fitness Articles:

What's Stopping You from Reaching Your Weight Loss Goals and Other Fitness Goals? Try this Mental Technique.
Your mind plays a huge role in whether or not you will lose the weight we want to lose, sculpt the lean body you desire, build the muscle we want to build, or another other fitness goal you may have. Try this technique we've developed for blasting through our own mental blocks.

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