Should it be the carrott or should it be the stick?

Perhaps you’re looking to influence your own behaviour, perhaps others. You have a pre-determined goal where you want a specific outcome to take place but which should it be?

But why should it be one or the other?

You could adopt an approach whereby both are adopted in order to hit a specific goal. I’m not talking seriously punitive (unless you have a sadistic streak with others and/or a masochistic streak with yourself - both of which have negative consequences) when it comes to “punishment”.

You could for example have a graded system of reward for hitting a goal - this works well if the goal is quantatively measurable (eg. I’ll do 100 sit-ups). Perhaps you can reward yourself commensurate with your achievement.

For 100 sit-ups you get X.

For 120 sit-ups you get X+Y.

Etc…

Failing to hit the hundred in the first place would be the “punitive element” (i.e. you just don’t get anything at all).

Or as a punitive task, maybe you could integrate something you don’t particularly like to do but you know will ultimately be very good for you - again this is another positive way of punitively rewarding yourself.

Of course I’ve talked about “self” here but the same principle applies to others.

And how about the concept of letting the action be the reward in itself?

Here’s an interesting article on just this concept by Keith Rosen:

Let The Action Be The Reward

All the best,

Tom

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The Use Of Rewards & Punishment To Influence Behaviour, rewards, influence behaviour, pre-determined goal, punishment, specific goal, graded system of reward,

Tags: Achievement, Goal Setting

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 at 10:01 am and is filed under Achievement, Goal Setting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.