Looking for a pay raise in work because you have been there for a while and done a good job?
Made your bed today?
Cooked a meal from fresh?
Did lots of chores around the house?
Helped a friend or family member out?
Hit the gym when you even though you where feeling tired?
Looking for a pay rise in work for doing your job well? How about being thankful for still having a job. Stop looking for a promotion if your just following your job description. You only ever deserve a promotion if you go above and beyond what your meant to do, if your regularly doing over time or taking on added roles and responsibilities outside of your paid job description.
We as a human race use Operant conditioning to help reinforce good behaviours and the removal of less desirable ones. We all do this and can see if in place in school’s, at home, the workplace, everywhere. Growing up we would have had to earn pocket money to clean our room, take out the trash and help out around the house. We would be threatened with having items or moments of enjoyment taken away if our “bad behaviour” continued etc.
We have all used it and received it, but maybe took no notice of operant conditioning, but as a result of being rared and essentially trained to expect a reward for doing something good, we now expect praise and a positive reward for doing stuff we really should be doing anyway.
Now, I am not for a second condemning the use of a system which has been proven to motivate us and develop good habits for a few hundred years, but we need to stop expecting a reward for doing what we are meant to and instead only reward ourselves or look for a reward when we have actually accomplished more than we should have and have gone above and beyond the norm.
