Goals ... and rewards

External Me...

          Lose 80 pounds
                consistently lose weight each week
                        1200-1500 calories daily
                        10000 steps a day
                        7 servings of fruits &/or veggies each day
                        15 minutes of exercise every day
                        track, track, track
                take regular weight and measurements
                be prepared for plateaus
                        (I'm still working out the steps to this one...   I know they'll happen later
                         and I HATE  them but no giving up this time)
                take daily pictures to track my long term progress

          Take care of my face and skin
                lotion each morning (arms, legs & torso - hands don't count)
                wash my face every night
                moisturize nightly

          Appear more professional
                hair and make-up done every day - work or no
                nails painted at all times
                nail fill every 2 weeks
                clothes clean and wrinkle free - before I'm headed out the door


I would love to be more specific with my weight loss goal, to say 2 lbs a week until mid-July 2012, but it's unrealistic to put such a definite goal on such an ethereal process.  What I can realistically expect is to not have a weigh-in that goes up as long as I'm sticking to the 5 steps to consistently losing weight.  And that's where the reward will come in.


Of course I have no idea how to reward for this particular goal.  I believe in most cases a reward linked to the steps to achieving it is most effective, but I can only think of 2 related rewards and I'm particularly interested in either one as motivation.  Food is out - period.  That's counterproductive and not something I care to reward myself with.  The other possiblity would be clothes - but I don't really like that either.  The easy thing to say would be that for every 2 weeks that I complete  all 5 steps I can have a new piece of clothing.  But...   if I'm still in the process of losing I will hopefully just need to replace it anyway. And in all honesty I spent plenty on clothes less than 2 years ago, when I had dropped to easily 35 lbs lighter than I am now.  I have a wardrobe that will fit for the next several stages of the process anyway.  And then there are always a few things that I need (work pants for winter) but when it's a reasonable need I'm not comfortable tying that to a reward either. So for now weight loss is it's own reward.


Rewarding myself for a professional appearance is a bit easier.  I have a small problem with jewelry - there can never be such a thing as enough.  I don't have a specific piece in mind at the moment, but I do know that I'd like to have a new long necklace, something chunky to wear with sweaters.  So my first short-term reward will be that necklace, when I have checked off all of my daily appearance and skin care steps for 2 solid weeks.


And as time goes on I expect that steps and goals will be updated, my reward system will be refined.  I want this to be an ongoing process so it'll have to grow and change as I do.  But I do believe that maybe I've got the right process this time.