How & Why to Reward Yourself for Reaching Personal Goals

By Guest Blogger, Leila

How & Why to Reward Yourself for Reaching Personal Goals

When you invest a lot of time and effort into something, a personal project or a new goal of yours, and you complete it, you feel like you’re on top of the world. Meeting your goals can be easy, but more often than not it involves dedication, discipline, and a lot of hard work, which is why you should reward yourself for achieving what you planned. Small victories should be celebrated with small treats and rewards, but greater accomplishments deserve equally great rewards.

Take five

Those convenient five-minute breaks are the best reward for those boring tasks you have to make yourself do every day. Replying to overdo emails, finishing a report or a boring meeting, organizing your office drawers… All these things are ‘small’ but they are an important part of your day, and you should reward yourself for completing them. Still, this doesn’t mean that you should take the rest of the day off – a small break will be enough. Take a short break, do a breathing meditation, or listen to your favourite song – these are all smart reward for small victories which won’t interfere with your work.

Grab a lunch with a friend

After completing a difficult task or going through a pretty rough day, you should celebrate overcoming the difficulties by going on a nice lunch with a friend or a colleague. At this lunch date you can talk about the things you are proud of and you can look back on each and every obstacle and just be happy that it’s over. This reward isn’t costly but it will make you feel energized and calm, especially if the task was difficult; and it will be a nice way to leave the stress behind.

Take a night off

When you feel stressed and overwhelmed from all the hard work you’ve had (or you’re still having), you can reward your mind and body with some time off. When you get home, lock the door, turn your phone off, and don’t open your email. Instead, spend a long time in bathroom, enjoying a warm bubble bath, having a glass of wine or a beer, and organize a movie night. You can have this movie night alone or you can invite a friend over and enjoy their company. When you reward yourself with some time-off (aka ‘me time’) where you don’t have to think about deadlines, projects, tests and overtime spent at work, you will be energized and ready to wrestle new challenges when you get back to work.

Buy something nice

Personal goals don’t have to be connected to your job, you might have set a goal to get back in shape or lose some weight, and when you achieve that, you should really find a good way to celebrate and reward yourself. Great way to honour your achievement is to buy yourself something nice: new shirt and pants to show off your weight loss, new purse, or perhaps new workout gear to get even better results in the gym. It will be a physical reminder of the personal goal you’ve managed to reach, and it will inspire you to keep pushing and work even harder.

Change of scenery

Big and important goals deserve serious rewards: completing a difficult project single-handedly, finally getting a degree, paying-off your student loans, moving in your own apartment, earning money on your own start-up business… All these things are big and important, and deserve to be celebrated accordingly. Treat yourself with a brief (or a not-so-brief) vacation to an exotic destination. Visit your local tourist agency or browse the web for some convenient and affordable offers: use trivago.com to compare prices of different hotels, try this website where you can book exotic destinations for less money than you’d expect, or try airbnb.com to find the right lodging.

Get a makeover

When you go through a rough time and achieve something you’ve sworn to do a long time ago, and when you’ve reached a new part of yourself, it’s only natural that you want to celebrate it with a new look. Perhaps you’ve been putting off dyeing your hair that ‘risky’ shade of blonde, or you never mustered enough courage to actually put on that special skirt and heels; but why not use it as a means to celebrate a personal success? You can also get a new hairstyle (new haircut or hair colour), hit the mall and ask shop assistants to help you pick pieces for yourself thus exploring different styles and trends.

You might put off rewarding yourself until you’ve reached that one big goal, but you can also set several smaller goals along the way, and treat yourself when you’ve completed them. That’s a great way to stay inspired and motivated, because you will feel and see the progress you’re making and that will give you strength to push yourself even further. Stepping out of your comfort zone is never easy, and you should definitely reward yourself for achieving that.

Tia, and TipsfromTia.com  is trying to keep you looking good and
feeling good, from the inside out. If you’ve got a problem or a tip email me! Be sure to Like and share on Facebook or Follow on Twitter or Instagram.