Is this a Western/American concept to reward oneself?
I didn't grow up in the USA, hence don't understand it. No such thing in my family.
Get good grades in school? That was expected due to attendance and homework.
Get higher belts in karate? That was expected due to practice.
Get better at sports? That was expected due to practice and tournaments.
Get promoted at work? That was expected due to showing up to work reliably, getting work done, and learning new tech.
Never had a "if you achieve <level> then you get <reward>".
If I needed anything, I'd get it as long as it was a valid justification. There weren't any frivolous purchases in my family.
Maybe the ultimate reward is achieving FIRE, for me.
So what happens when you don't get good grades, higher belts, better at sports, and promoted at work?
Just work harder to achieve targets.
Learned as a kid in science-focused Catholic school that one can't achieve 100% of the targets every time, but one can keep striving to attain those goals. Learned the value of long-term goal setting. The Irish Fathers were excellent instructors on the art of delayed gratification. (I didn't mean it that way.)
But I thought about this Q yesterday on a long walk/run. It is an interesting Q.
I don't reward myself specifically. Rewards are for the family - bigger house (not clown size) in a better school district for the kids where they can take the bus thus freeing up driving time; build up the FU stash so wife can take an extended break from work; have travel money; work out daily. More family time is a good reward.
I guess I don't relate to rewards being material goods such as vehicles, jewellery, expensive clothing/shoes. I'm happier when I buy tools to build/fix something while learning in the process.
I think this explains me best:
I just get really happy and feel a great sense of accomplishment. I feel good because I have less fear for the future. I like having financial security.
Yeah. My family isn't from north America and we never got rewards for grades. If anything, we were taught that when we did get good grades that we should be grateful for having the kind of resources and supports that some kids don't have.
They were very big on education, but not grades, especially since I had a lazy-ass brother who easily got good grades and I was dyslexic, but much harder working and I got terrible grades. I loved learning though, so that was encouraged, but not rewarded, just encouraged with more opportunities to learn.
But there also wasn't an emphasis on performance in my family either. So when
@GuitarStv asked the question of what happened in response to poor performance, I had to think about it for a bit.
Poor performance didn't really exist in my house, there was just meaningful effort and enjoyment. If I worked really hard on something and enjoyed the process, that was worthwhile. The emphasis was always on trying things and figuring out where our individual strengths were.
Yes, we had to pass school, but if we put in effort and that wasn't our strength, that wasn't a big deal, and certainly wasn't framed as a disappointment.
My brother's total laziness about learning was absolutely framed as a disappointment. His ease with good grades and extreme ability to charm teachers was perceived as a major detriment and risk because he was so praised and rewarded at school that he didn't feel he needed to put in any further effort.
So yeah, the concept of rewards is just foreign to me. The goal has always been to find something that I'm good at that I enjoy doing. The positive outcomes are just natural consequences of effort and living well.
I feel like the (North?) American value system sets hard work up as this brutal neoliberal gauntlet that needs to be run in order to get the sweet, sweet rewards of success and money.
Of course, that's not exclusive to North America, many cultures push the same value on their kids.
