How to Create a Reward that Makes Habits Satisfying
The vital thing in getting a habit to stick is to feel successful—even if it’s in a small way. The feeling of success is a signal that tells your brain that the habit paid off and that it was worth the effort.
This is why the reward is a key aspect of habit formation. It is the feeling that comes with a reward – pleasure, satisfaction, enjoyment – that closes the feedback loop and teaches your brain which behaviors to remember for next time.
In the first seven lessons, we’ve talked about how to make your habits easy, obvious, and attractive.
In this lesson, we’re going to discuss some strategies for closing the feedback loop on your habits in a positive and enjoyable way. In other words, we’re going to discuss how to create an effective reward that makes your habits satisfying.
One of my favorite examples comes from a group of city engineers in Stockholm, Sweden.
These engineers laid a series of sensors across a set of stairs in the subway and decorated them to resemble a giant set of piano keys. When pedestrians walked up the stairs, musical tones played from nearby speakers. Suddenly, using the stairs was fun and surprising. Each step was accompanied with a musical note. Motivated by the immediate satisfaction of making music as they walked, 66 percent more people took the stairs as they exited the subway rather than riding the escalator nearby.
This type of immediate feedback is a powerful factor in getting habits to stick. The more immediately satisfying a habit is, the more likely it will be repeated in the future.
I am reminded of a popular story about a prank that college students played on their professor. As the story goes, the professor was known for “talking with his hands” and making lots of gestures while explaining concepts to students.
On the first day of the semester, a few students met amongst themselves and agreed that, whenever the professor raised his arms while talking, the students would nod their heads and smile approvingly at whatever he said. The students followed through on their plan and, by the end of the term, the professor was gesticulating with such vigor that his arms were flailing wildly throughout the entire lecture.
We learn which behaviors to repeat based on how they make us feel. When we take an action that feels good—like a professor looking at a room full of students smiling and nodding—we want to do more of that action in the future. In Atomic Habits, I refer to this as “The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change”: What is rewarded gets repeated. What is punished is avoided.
Receiving these immediate rewards is particularly crucial during the early stages of forming a habit.
Early on, it’s all sacrifice. You’ve gone to the gym a few times, but you’re not stronger or fitter or faster—at least, not in any noticeable sense. It’s only months later, once you shed a few pounds or your arms gain some definition, that it becomes easier to exercise for its own sake. In the beginning, you need a short-term reason to stay on track. This is why immediate rewards are essential. They keep you excited while the delayed rewards accumulate in the background.
What we’re really talking about here—when we’re discussing immediate rewards—is the ending of a behavior. The ending of any experience is vital because we tend to remember it more than other phases. You want the ending of your habit to be satisfying – watching your favorite TV show after going for a challenging run, taking a bubble bath after deep cleaning the kitchen, going to your favorite coffee shop after waking up without hitting snooze. You want a reward for a job well done.
Create an external reinforcer that aligns with your desired identity
Walk in the woods for retirement savings (identity = freedom and control of time)
Bubble bath for exercise habit (identity = taking care of your body)
Every time you skip going out to dinner, transfer $50 to an account labeled “Trip to Europe”
Of course, it would be best if we didn’t need these external rewards to maintain motivation. In a perfect world, the reward for a good habit is the habit itself. In the real world, however, good habits tend to feel worthwhile only after they have provided you with something. External rewards are one of the best strategies we have for maintaining motivation while we’re waiting for those long-term outcomes to arrive.
However, there’s a crucial detail that should not be overlooked. If you’re not careful, the external reward can become the thing you end up chasing. A student only studies so they can get their allowance, rather than for the sake of learning. An employee only makes sales calls to fulfill a quota, not to serve customers and grow the business. The key is to not lose sight of your desired identity, and whenever possible, to choose an external reward that reinforces the type of person you wish to be. You want to avoid rewards that conflict with your desired identity.
Buying a new jacket is fine if you’re trying to lose weight or read more books, but it doesn’t work if you’re trying to budget and save money. You’re casting one vote for being a saver, and another for being a spender. Instead, taking a bubble bath or going on a leisurely walk are good examples of rewarding yourself with free time, which aligns with your ultimate goal of more freedom and financial independence.
Similarly, if your reward for exercising is eating a bowl of ice cream, then you’re casting votes for conflicting identities, and it ends up being a wash. Instead, maybe your reward should be a weekly massage, which is both a luxury and a vote toward taking care of your body. Now the short-term reward is aligned with your long-term vision of being a healthy person.
Eventually, as intrinsic rewards like a better mood, more energy, and reduced stress kick in, you’ll become less concerned with chasing the secondary reward. The identity itself becomes the reinforcer. You do it because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you. The more a habit becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to follow through.
Incentives can start a habit. Identity sustains a habit.
That said, it takes time for the evidence to accumulate and a new identity to emerge. Immediate reinforcement helps maintain motivation in the short term while you’re waiting for the long-term rewards to arrive.
That's all for Lesson 8. See you in the next lesson,
James Clear
