H·08
Habits & Behaviour
The Reward Must Be Now
Persistence is predicted by how much you enjoy the activity, not by how much you value the outcome.
- Evidence
- solid
- Topic
- Habits
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
solidHow strong is the evidence?
Good evidence behind it, but fewer people have checked it independently.
- Woolley & Fishbach, Personality & Social Psych Bulletin, 2016/2017
Why it works
Delayed rewards motivate the choosing, immediate rewards motivate the continuing. Health in 20 years cannot compete with comfort in 20 seconds.
What to do about it
- Engineer one immediate pleasure into the activity itself: good coffee, the right music, a better tool, a nicer notebook.
- Ask “how do I make this more enjoyable” before “how do I get more disciplined”.
- Mark completion physically — cross it off, move the marker. The tiny hit is the point.
Where people go wrong
Rewarding yourself afterwards with the thing the habit is meant to reduce.
Read next
- Temptation BundlingChain the thing you should do to the thing you want to do, and let the want carry both.solid
- The Fresh Start EffectPeople act on aspirations after a temporal landmark — a Monday, a birthday, a first of the month, a new job.solid
- Small Wins Run the DayThe strongest driver of a good working day is visible progress in meaningful work — ahead of recognition, incentives and clear goals.solid
- Self-Criticism Is Not MotivationSelf-compassion after a failure produces more subsequent effort and improvement than self-criticism does.solid