Friendly motivation

That’s right, I’m double blogging it today. I feel like I have to break in the new domain name adequately. Also, I didn’t want to seem too cranky after my ranting about snow earlier.

I have been pondering the idea of rewards lately after developing a reward system for my friend Chelse. Chelse is my best friend from college… we’re listed as in a relationship on Facebook, which should give you an idea of how ridiculous we are together (luckily her boyfriend doesn’t mind). She is adopting healthier habits, and as part of my efforts to help her out I have created a gold-star point chart. It is awesome. Also, it’s just a document in Excel. Long story short, Chelse is awarded a gold star each time she goes to the gym, with health eating bonuses and other bonuses to be awarded as I see fit. At certain points on the chart I reward her with something silly (she just reached 100 points and I gave her a gift subscription to Self magazine, for instance).

This is not something that would work with everyone, but for Chelse it seems to be helping. I asked her the other day if I’m annoying her by checking in every so often to see how many trips to the gym she’s made or how she’s doing, and she said it motivates her to know that I will be checking. I should mention that this wasn’t a case of me forcing my help upon this friend, and also this is someone I have known for years and I’m extremely close to. She is one of the people who refers to my mom and dad as “mom and dad,” and we live several hours apart so this is long-distance encouragement. I know that she is making these changes for herself and would be a motivated rock star regardless of our silly chart, but it’s a fun way to encourage her nonetheless. She could totally lie to me about going to the gym and I would believe her, so ultimately it is up to her to care about herself enough to go to the gym and eat healthy. Chelse has this to say about her glorious chart: “I find it more effective if I have to tell you every day that I go to the gym rather then once a week. I tell myself ‘I can not go and just deal with it later in the week.’” Also, she knows that I’ll stalk her if she tries to avoid me. That, and I don’t judge her if she doesn’t want to go to the gym or eat healthy, because that’s not my job. Really, I just enjoy gold stars and saying, “Yay Chelse!”

It goes both ways, luckily! She’s the person who motivated me to sign up for the half marathon, and that turned out splendidly for me. Chelse and her boyfriend were the founding members of my finish line cheering squad, and that definitely taught me that it’s awesome and super motivating to have a cheering squad. That’s the real point of the gold stars, to cheer her on as much as she’s cheered for me.

Lately as I’ve been wondering what on earth I am going to use as rewards for future chart accomplishments I’ve also been wondering why I don’t reward myself in the same ways. I think I should start. But what to use as a reward? Any ideas? It is definitely important to acknowledge my own accomplishments as much as I acknowledge those of my friends, and I have no idea why I haven’t been doing so all along. I encourage anyone reading this to go do something nice for yourself today. I will give you a gold star.