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From personal experience, starting with a cookie (I used a piece of chocolate, because small individually wrapped units) is really the most effective way. Howe
by SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
From personal experience, starting with a cookie (I used a piece of chocolate, because small individually wrapped units) is really the most effective way.
However, I always congratulated myself (outloud, by name) when giving myself the treat, and pretty soon, the congratulating myself was conditioned as a reward for the activity, letting me drop (most of) the usage of actual treats.
Just treat yourself like a particularly stubborn and clever dog/cat/animal you're trying to train -- if marketing has taught us anything, it's that cheap psychology tricks work.
- shock 10y agoHow did you choose your initial rewards? Did you just start experimenting with things that popped in your mint or did you find a list of suggested rewards? I'm trying to limit my sugar intake otherwise I would've gladly used the sweet treat reward.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoI just went for the first thing that popped in to my mind that is a primary reward -- something biology has conditioned me to want, and will activate reward pathways (quickly!) when ingested/experienced. Honestly, you could probably just start with the secondary reward of congratulating yourself -- it's just important that you do it out loud and call yourself by name (eg, "John, you did a good job of running today"), so you hear it happening, instead of it being part of your mental dialog. Generally though, I find that speaking to myself is psychologically different than talking to myself internally, so YMMV if that's not true for you.