Consider a time when you were learning a new skill and it was an unpleasant experience. Did that skill stick? Do you still have it today?

What about the last skill you developed that made you feel good? Did that become a routine behaviour more or less quickly than the other? Can it still be seen in your behaviours today?

Now that you know your desired behaviour and have designed that behaviour to be more reliable and desirable, how do you make it repeatable? The answer is…rewards!

If I can leave you with only one thing from this entire MOOC, one strategy that can change behaviour, it is this:

neurons that fire together, wire together!

If we can make a behaviour feel good, it is more likely to reoccur. The brain makes the connection between a behaviour and feeling good, which effectively wires in that behaviour as positive and desirable and makes the likelihood of it happening again skyrocket. It is therefore important that we understand what effective positive internal reward is, and how it can help aid behaviour change in ourselves and in others.

When we employ a behaviour to meet a demand, we are rewarded by our bodies with a rush of chemicals and hormones at three points:

First, when we decide to do the behaviour and we expect a reward or consequence.

Second, while we are performing the behaviour.

Third, at the conclusion of the behaviour.

Our body responds to the complex input of chemicals and interprets that behaviour as either positive or negative, worthwhile or wasteful. Our body then encodes this release of chemicals and associates it with doing the behaviour. We refer to this release of chemicals as an emotional reaction.

The emotional reactions typically involved in a behavioural response are:

Craving – the internalised want or need to do the behaviour

Satiation – the reduction of stress elicited by engaging in the desired behaviour

Elation – the positive response from engaging in the behaviour successfully

Aversion – the negative response or frustration from engaging in the behaviour unsuccessfully

By pairing any behaviour to a strong enough emotional response we can encourage the body to crave the expected emotional response. This, in turn, increases or decreases our motivation to engage in the desired behaviour.

In layman’s terms, this simply means that we feel better and change faster when we experience a strong positive emotion while remembering to do, doing or directly after doing a desired behaviour. Likewise, we feel defeated and take longer to change our behaviour when we experience a deep negative reaction to remembering or doing a behaviour, or when we fail to do the desired behaviour after being prompted.

That said, it is important that you understand the difference between rewards and incentives as means to support behaviour change.

A reward is an immediate or closely-paired response to a behaviour that is a direct result of that behaviour. Specific praise, feedback and admiration are all kinds of rewards. Typically, rewards are intrinsically linked to – and will somehow validate or confer with – a person’s internal aspirational identity.

Incentives are motivators disguised as a reward. These typically include things such as sticker charts, end-of-year bonuses, or rewards for sustained behaviour change (i.e., If I run every day this week, I will reward myself with a massage).

While incentives can be important to motivate behaviour change, they are not the same as an immediate and specific reward and do not garner the same biopsychosocial feedback (the positive emotional response).

Plan to do a ‘positivity blitz’, following the guide below. (This activity is planned for educators, but can be adapted for the individual)

1. Talk to the students about how they are feeling right now, and record this.

2. Talk to the students about how they celebrate. Model your own celebration.

3. Give students some examples of times to celebrate, and have them model their own celebration (i.e. Christmas morning, or winning at sports day).

4. Task the students to clean up the classroom. Tell them that every time they do something towards this goal, no matter how small, they need to celebrate.

5. Do this for 2 minutes, also remembering to celebrate yourself while you tidy.

6. Sit down and record how the students feel now.

7. Do a celebration blitz whenever you feel the class is a bit down and out.

8. Remember to encourage students to do their own personal celebration when they are successful.

Previously, I have had pictures of my students doing their personal celebrations in a class display. This reminds me of their personal celebration and also reminds me to prompt students to celebrate when they are successful in any way.

Using the examples explored in this topic, discuss personal celebrations with students or reflect on your own preferred celebration.

Come up with three or four different celebrations that you can use throughout the day and in different contexts (in private, in public and with others).

Plan for and do a ‘positivity blitz’ and record your reflections on how you feel before and after.

I encourage you to write your reflections in a journal or Word document using these guiding questions:

Are you the kind of person for whom celebration comes to naturally?

Do you need to practice your celebrations so they feel less awkward and you are more likely to do them?

Try to teach someone else about celebrations and work on a celebration together.

Finally, experiment. Try to wire in one new behaviour with a celebration and one without. See which becomes automatic faster.