There's a form of positive reinforcement, where a person is rewarded both for reaching a goal, and for cracking on with it. I have heard it referred to as "Giving the kid the M&Ms"... which sounds like a fabulous idea for this kid. I'm not entirely sure, by the way, that it's ever been truly used on me... given a pack of M&Ms in 4th grade, I had to give an average of the colors in a 1993-era bag of M&Ms before being allowed to indulge. This just allowed me to organize colorful food. Ok, I learned mean, median and mode, too, but frankly, I was thinking of other things.
I did find an interesting lady with tourette's, one very fabulous Touretteshero, who also manages, in her tics, to give such poetic soliloquies as, "Be as ancient as a fish and as wise as a guillotine". Jess, you should write fortune cookies. She has a system in place. When she goes tic-free for 24 hours, she gets a decorated rubber squeaky pig. As much as I like and adore her collection, especially "Pig in a Wig"- dressed quite nicely in 18th century threads, I'm not really a piggie person. I love the snub-nosed little pink buggers, but in thinking up a system to keep me crackin' on, and motivate me, it wasn't a rubber squeaky pig that made my heart beat more quickly.
A friend asked me if I'd be upset if I didn't reach my goal, and thus missed out on what little trinket I'd decided was my reward. Truthfully: Yes. But I've decided on my first "pig" so to speak, and might very well turn it into a theme- (For a while, I was searching half-sarcastically for a Cthulhu teddy bear. They exist.)
I've loved HP Lovecraft and the like for many years. So I was delighted to see this beautiful little graphic novel, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, about a little boy, his pet, Spot, and his epic journey. I had yet to decide, when I lost out on my goal at nearly 7 weeks, exactly what my time perimeters were, but 2 months is my first hurdle.
In response to my friend's worry, I've decided that it is time to buy myself something nice. And work on the next goal as it comes. I have to work on my attitude, too. And I gave myself a lot to worry about, after I worried that I had nothing TO worry about. Ah, c'est la vie. Actually, I decided this: I need to be patient and kind to myself, and not keep being frustrated by all the goals I set up for myself to jump.
So for now, I'm giving myself some time, hopefully finding a somewhat mindless pursuit that I can do without analyzing, I'll enjoy the Roman Art History & Latin classes I'm working on, and simply get engrossed in the beautiful artwork, etc.
I can analyze later.
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