Did you finish cleaning your room? Did you exercise for one solid hour? Did you call your friend and make amends? Did you go one whole day without a cigarette? Did you refrain from ranting out and instead recalled the old adage, no one can know what a fool you are, until you open your mouth? Then reward yourself.

　　How you may ask, does one go about rewarding oneself. It is amazing how many people are not aware of how to do good things for oneself. I found this list of rewards as a sure fire way of knowing that if I didn't even care to do one of these for myself, the most important person, obviously, in my whole life, then I must be too depressed to do any of those behaviors expounded upon in the first paragraph. Then, I would consider paying someone to hear me talk.

　　Rewards are an inherent part in our motivational system. Pavlov discovered them and used them quite effectively. No one has since up mastered Pavlov in reducing our conditioned motivational system to its most elemental and brain formative manner. The dog barks, you take him out. He urinates, you give him a treat.

　　You refrained from confronting someone who was waiting for you at City Hall. You, instead, held your shoulders up and continued on your path deliberately ignoring her loud insults. You completed your task and returned home minus the confrontation. Tomorrow you should go to the mall and get a manicure.

　　In order to be effective, this type of conditioning must be continual. I am not a dog, you might say. Well, neither were monkeys, astronauts. We train on animals, and we use what works on humans, who, by the way, lest we forget, my God why do we have to say it , over and over again, are also animals.

　　Twelve rewards that are effective and that people have used:

　　Go out to a store deliberately to buy yourself a new book, a magazine, a tape, a hat.
　　Sleep in late. If you can't sleep, lie in bed until you absolutely have to get up.
　　Only eat food that you like as a reward for one day.
　　Get a new hairstyle.
　　Get a jogging outfit, new running shoes, an exercise module.

　　Get tickets to a sporting game, or to a concert.
　　Go to a movie or join netflix
　　Treat yourself to lunch.
　　Hire someone else to do your household chores for one week.
　　Plan time for what you want to do not what everybody around you is expecting you to do.

　　Rewards were how we developed as humans. From crying when we wanted our diapers changed to cuddling up when we wanted to be comforted, we were either treated with a clean diaper or with hugs or we were ignored. If not the former then we have had serious problems all of our lives. But, now as adults, we can reward ourselves. If we can read this article, we can overcome all obstacles that we feel are in our way by ourselves and most importantly for ourselves.

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