The reward can be whatever you want it to be as long as you can really appreciate it. You make a very good suggestion, Shanel.

Before I started blogging, I dreaded the many daily, mundane tasks that my office jobs required. So, I devised a token reward system that worked for me using only pennies, nickels, quarters, and nails that I kept in my desk at work. Whenever I completed a small but dreaded task, like checking my emails, I moved a penny from my drawer into an empty jelly jar on top of my desk. As soon as I finished a bigger task, like going through my huge inbox, I put a nickel in the jar, and so on. The nails (which represented dollars, I wasn’t about to leave dollar bills out on my desk!) were for really big tasks like a report or phonecalls with clients. Just watching that jar fill up every day was motivation enough to get through some of my toughest days. I’m not sure it would work for everyone, but it worked for me.

Maybe if it helps, you could buy yourself something nice if you fill up the jar with enough change to make $1, $5, or $10… whatever makes sense to you and is in your budget.

What I forgot to add is that success in competition requires some kind of reward or incentive, as you’ve so well articulated here.