The Best Rewards to Keep You Motivated

From Writerslife.org:

As writers, staying determined and motivated is key to achieving one’s goals and feeling successful.

There are many things that can all too easily knock our confidence or mean that we get side-tracked and our writing suffers as a result. So it’s important to try to think of ways to incentivise oneself to remain motivated and keep persevering.

One of the simplest ways to stay motivated as a writer is to give yourself rewards!

Knowing the best type of rewards to keep you on track and determined to reach your goals naturally varies from person to person. However, if you are stuck for ideas try some of these:

Take yourself out for a meal.

When you’ve reached a significant writing goal why not reward yourself by going to that fancy restaurant you’ve always wanted to try? Even better get your partner or a friend to treat you instead!

Watch an episode of your favourite show.

If you need a break in your writing day why not allow yourself to watch an episode of that guilty pleasure tv series you love? If you are not a TV fan, listening to some great music or reading a book for half an hour can have the same effect.

Take a trip.

This is a substantial reward and should be reserved for one of your bigger and more significant goals. If you finish your book or get something published, then you could reward yourself with an epic holiday or weekend away to celebrate.

Have some retail therapy.

Sometimes nothing does the trick like a good bit of retail therapy. If you are feeling particularly pleased with yourself why not take a trip to town and buy yourself something beautiful? If you’ve been working hard you’ll no doubt have been saving money, so you deserve it!

Take a class

Sometimes rewarding yourself by learning more can be really satisfying. If you’ve got your eye on a class you’d like to take, why not have that as a reward for achieving one of your writing goals?

Buy yourself some flowers.

Something as simple as buying yourself some flowers can feel like a great treat and make you more determined to keep on writing!

Do something completely relaxing.

Take a stroll, have a bubble bath, book yourself in for a massage - whatever works for you. Doing something completely relaxing to recuperate and allow yourself to unwind can be so helpful to your creativity too.

Have the day off.

Remember, writers, just like anyone, deserve the day off from time to time! If you’ve been working hard and have gotten yourself ahead of schedule, then it’s time to put your writing aside and have a day just for you.

Spend time with family and friends.

It’s all too easy to for our social lives to suffer when immersed a big writing project. So when you want to reward yourself do so by spending some quality time with loved ones - it will be well worth it and remind you to stay on track to make sure you can balance your work and social life.

Remember rewards can be big or small, but it is essential to make sure that you only reward yourself when you have done something worthwhile. Be strict with yourself. If you don’t put the work in you don’t get the reward, but if you do, you do - that’s what will keep you pushing forward and making sure you stick to your writing goals.

This never really occurred to me. It seems I already do many of these things, well, except for taking trips (don't have the money for that) and buying myself flowers (never considered doing that for any reason whatsoever).  And rarely do I have money for a fancy restaurant, but just enough for fast food. And I only so often buy anything fancy which is what the "retail therapy" thing seems to be saying. 

Still I think these are great ideas to consider. not just for writing but for any hard work and effort one makes to do something they really love.