Naturally humans want to be good. We want to feel good and be healthy. Firstly, let’s learn our ABCs… no it’s not the alphabet but a theoretical approach on how our behaviours are formed:
A (antecedent) --> B (behaviour) --> C (consequence)
Previously I wrote a post on managing our personal environment, As such as healthy/unhealthy food cues that lead to healthy/unhealthy eating Bs. We could also work on controlling the Cs to enhance our perseverance of healthy Bs. ‘Consequence’ has a negative connotation, however, we can use it in the context of a reward. Simply reward yourself in the right way i.e a positive C immediately after you perform a healthy lifestyle B to increase the likelihood that you will perform that B again. Some research has suggested that rewarding yourself for healthy behaviours may be more effective in achieving long term outcomes than only rewarding yourself for outcomes such as I lost ‘x’ kg. At the end of the day it would make more sense to focus on the daily healthy behaviours which eventually lead to the desired outcome.
Previous post: A (healthy food cue) --> B (healthy eating)
Today: B (healthy eating or physical activity) --> C (non-food or non-sedentary activity reward such as patting yourself on the back, going to the park/beach/markets, going out with friends, travelling, doing a hobby, going to a spa, getting a massage, gifting yourself, etc)
Reward yourself appropriately after a healthy behaviour today :)
