By Daniel Rodriguez | Dr. Budgets
Rewarding myself when I reach my goals hasn’t been my strength in the past. As soon as I achieved my goal I would set a new goal, without acknowledging my efforts for reaching my original goal. Unfortunately, this created a cycle of “striving, but not arriving,” which made it very difficult to sustain my motivation over the long run. This is why I believe that rewards are critical to achieving your goals.
An alternative to my old ways that I have found works for me is to reward myself as I reach specific pre-determined milestones along the way to my ultimate goal. Those rewards can be relatively small, such as a movie night at Cinepolis, a new disc golf disc, or a FlotCompress (send me a message if you want to know what this is), but they keep my motivation up along the way to my main goal. When I do reach my big goal, then my reward is also BIG! A good example of this is when I purchased a brand new iPhone 6 in November of 2014 for achieving my business growth goal for the year. This was an especially big reward for me considering I hadn’t purchased a new cell phone since 2007 (I did buy used iPhones between then and 2014)!
Rewards are critical to achieving your goals because you acknowledge the efforts that were necessary to achieve your goal, and you celebrate your success before moving onto your next goal. Without that acknowledgement, my goals would just blend together into a never ending string of actions toward an unreachable goal. It is great to continue to strive toward bigger and bigger goals, but remember to celebrate your successes along the way.
Do you think rewards are critical to achieving your goals? What has been your experience with this? I would love to hear about it in the comments section below! If you know someone who wants guidance with their financial goals, please have them contact us to schedule a complimentary consultation. Wishing you many rewards this year!