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It’s wrong to reward yourself for things that you should do right anyway. This is what most people think but most people are wrong. One of the things that lowers self-confidence and self esteme is a lack of rewarding yourself for your successes. Even small success should be rewarded. In this last of the current series of posts on building self confidence we will explore how to build rewards in to your daily life.

Do you feel that you don’t deserve any rewards?

It is not uncommon to discover that people do not believe that they should get any rewards. I’m not advocating the belief that just because you do something well somehow the world owes you a reward but instead I do advocate you rewarding yourself.

When you do something right  – even if it is insignificant – you should allow yourself to feel good that you have done it and that it has gone well.

When you set yourself a goal and you succeed at that goal you should reward your behaviour.

What kind of reward should you give yourself?

In part it depends on the goal but even small rewards can make you feel good. You wouldn’t want to buy yourself a new car every time you clean your kitchen because you would soon be bankrupt but there are small things that make good rewards.

You should cultivate an attitude of thinking of new ways to reward yourself. For instance when you have cleaned the kitchen you could make yourself a cup of coffee and sit outside and enjoy the fresh air (if you get fresh air and have somewhere to sit outside – sorry it is always tough when writing a blog to come up with something that will work for the whole world but hopefully you get the point). Think about things that make you happy and build them into your life as rewards for things you do.

What are the rewards for anyway?

When you reward yourself for something you have done you are encouraging yourself to act that same way again. It makes you feel good about what you do and will help you to do good things. This is a great way to raise your self confidence.

Any time you can feel good about yourself is great.

A simple way to reward yourself

Here is my suggestion for a very simple reward. Take it or leave it but make sure if you don’t use this one you will use a different reward.

Your reward is time. Not a long time – unless you have achieved a great goal of course. When you do something that you feel it would be good to reward yourself for give yourself a 5 minute pamper.

The five minute pamper

Sit or lie in a quiet place on your own (if possible). Close your eyes, take five deep breaths. Take them in through your nose and then hold your breath for 4 seconds until you let the first four out with a sigh. The fifth breath you can let out slowly and very controlled and as you do say in your mind relax (this should take a couple of minutes) and as you breathe out feel the tension floating away with the breath.

Now you are relaxed put on a smile (even if you don’t feel like it) and repeat to yourself quietly in your mind (until 4 minutes are up):

I have done something well. I am a good person. I love myself.

Try to feel the sentiment asyou think it.

For the last minute just relax and before you get started again take one last deep breath and sigh.

This is a good reward.

Feel free to vary it to suit yourself.

I hope you have benefitted from this short course on self confidence. If you have benefitted perhaps you know others who could benefit from it as well. Email them right now with a link to the first post in the series.

How do you reward yourself?

Leave a comment telling others what you do for a reward. There may be things you do that others could make good use of.