Think Small

To achieve big, you will need to think small

• Create an actionable plan

One of the most surprising pieces of advice to come out of the wellbeing literature perhaps is the importance of developing your curiosity. At the simplest level, this is about actively seeking to ‘take notice’ of the sights, sounds and sensations around you and to savour these moments.

We usually assume that when we set ourselves a goal we will probably pursue it with focus and attention, drawing heavily on our slower, reflective system.

It’s a curious and wonderful thing about the human condition that we are often a mystery to ourselves

Think Small is not a checklist.

trengthening your social relationships;

getting healthy and active;

learning something new;

being more curious; and

giving to others.

We will outline two different but complementary ways of using rewards – one focused on achieving the overall objective and the other on rewarding the behaviours that will help you get there. We will also highlight the potential pitfalls to avoid when using rewards. So, the three lessons for setting rewards to encourage you to achieve your goals are:

Put something meaningful at stake. Link achieving your ultimate goal to a significant reward, and make it binding and enforceable.

Use small rewards to build good habits. Motivate yourself or others along the way by using smaller incentives linked to specific steps needed to achieve the overarching goal.

Beware of backfire effects. Financial incentives can ‘crowd out’ your intrinsic motivations, so be careful that rewards (or penalties) don’t undermine good intentions. You can do this by using different types of non-financial rewards.

It will also mean giving thought to how an incentive is structured and framed. Should you reward the ultimate goal (grades), or behaviours that help you or others get there (attendance, behaviour and homework), and should you use monetary or non-monetary rewards? And if you decide to use financial incentives, you may want to consider whether to frame a reward as ‘gaining’ £80, or setting £80 aside and taking it away from the person who fails to achieve the objective in question. These are identical rewards, but bite in very different ways.

Top of this list is the concern that financial rewards can ‘crowd out’ intrinsic motivation. Lots of studies, some of which we will examine in this chapter, have documented how paying people to do things that they are already motivated to do can backfire