#108
In psychology there’s positive and negative reinforcement.
With positive reinforcement, you get a reward for every correct completed action.
Let’s say you did a gym class, for which you rewarded yourself with 30 minutes of “lazy time” or a muffin.
Your brain connects the “feel good” emotion after the reward with the action that might have been otherwise unpleasant to complete.
Well, with negative reinforcement the punishment is worse than the “unpleasant” action. For example, it removes your access to something meaningful to you.
Let’s say you skipped a gym class and you don’t want to do that again, so you decided to give yourself a permanent ban from watching Netflix or listening to Spotify (something that you would normally do on a daily basis, so you can really experience the impact of your actions).
Your brain then connects the “feel bad” emotion with the punishment that could have been avoided by simply doing the-good-for-you-but-unpleasant-in-the-moment-task in the first place.
Both methods can be used to help you stick to your ideal routine, so that you can achieve your goals. The question is which one motivates you more: rewards or punishments*?
*Punishing yourself with thoughts & words of guilt and shame is 100% a punishment, but it’s not one that will actually help, so keep up the positive self-talk while you adjust your actions.
