Hello, I'm Cord! I just attended the minicamp, have been running a meetup in Mountain View (the last one I'm leading is today :'( ), and this is my first post too!
As per Andrew Critch's instructions, I've been mentally rewarding myself with excitement and noting that I'm taking correct action when I do anything that gets me at all closer to things I want, including just remembering that they're things I want that I haven't done yet, and including remembering that I'm using this procedure.
This morning I was tired and annoyed about "having" to get...
Similar to Cord, when I notice an action or thought that brings me closer to my goals, I smile. Before, I would usually groan or feel bad for realizing that I had not taken an action, which I now realize was creating the opposite impact than what I wanted!
I've mostly been saying in my mind "hey, I just did that, and that means I'm closer to doing X, that's pretty cool!" There's kindof a mental feeling that goes along with that for me, which I seem to be able to feel without actually saying anything in my mind, so I've been doing that too, and it seems to be working to move me towards my end goal.
People have suggested a lot of things to me, like physically high fiving myself or jumping up and down for a bit. I'd be curious to hear what other people do.
I have a roster of people who I imagine smiling at me, which I use to reward myself with: when I do something clever, I imagine a friend of mine whose intelligence I respect smiling at me. When I need comfort, I imagine my parents or my most accepting friend smiling at me. When I need excitement, I imagine a particular crush smiling at me.
I found Valentine's point about self-rewarding 'feeling like bullshit' to be true in much the same way that you can't tickle yourself. But then, I used his 'simulate an event; feel the emotions' method to simulate someone... (read more)