Reinforcement in Review

So it has been a few weeks since I started this and I have met my step, water, and yoga goals each week and am looking forward to moving them forward. But right now I want to talk about my reinforcement.

I found myself this weekend not wanting to engage in my reinforcement and that’s a problem. Luckily, my goals were met with reinforcement from peers and close friends as well as naturally occurring reinforcers like feeling more energetic due to walking more and no more effects from dehydration.

It’s really hard to deprive yourself of things you like especially when you are in control of the reinforcement. It’s easy to haggle with yourself saying that you were close enough to your goal to get the reinforcement. I delay my reinforcement until Sunday every week after I met the previous weeks goals. So sometimes by Thursday I would try and rationalize with myself that 5/7 days is just as good as 6/7(mastery criteria).

In addition, the reinforcement I choose felt more like a chore when it came time to do it. I didn’t want a responsibility I wanted freedom to do what I wanted. Since our preferences change so rapidly I need to be able to have a lot of choices. Then it came to me; money. Money lets you do what you want! Explain

So I decided to change to a token economy system. I’m assigning goals a money value and I pay myself to engage in the behavior that accomplishes those goals. Then once I’ve reached engaging in the behavior 6 out 7 days a week goal. For example; I get 50 cents for each day I walk 2500 steps. I can bank that money until the end of the week and only if I hit that 6 out of 7 day criteria can I take the money out. If I only get 3 out of 7 days I get to keep the money I got for the 3 days I walked 2500 steps or more, but it stays in the bank until I do hit the 6 out 7 day mark. The money doesn’t have to be used so when I want to do nothing and don’t need money or if I want to save up and buy something I would never get myself I can do that.

This will allow me to get a little bit of reinforcement in the form of getting paid every time I engage in the behavior and then a larger reinforcer when I save up for it. I have the capacity and tolerance to wait for something like that, so this will hopefully be a more effective approach.