Do you like doing a chore and then immediately getting ten dollars? Do you envy going out every day to run a mile, knowing that it will benefit you later in your life? Which one would you choose?
In the TedX video, Tali Sharot talks about how to motivate ones self, and believes that a person should get instant rewards in order to actuate them. Sharot tells us people tend to look at good rather than face bad news. She says that there are three principles, make people see the progress of others, immediate rewards, and progress monitoring.
I believe that we should not have instant rewards. This is because once we actually go into the outside world, there will not be any immediate rewards. If we get used to having immediate rewards in childhood, we could be in trouble when we grow older. For example, does Elon Musk get instant rewards? Does Jeff Bezos become the richest person in the world overnight? No! We can all see that all the famous and successful businessmen do not have a bad habit of calling for immediate rewards. Instead, we should look to having rewards in the long run. If a person likes playing video games, and he finishes his math homework and plays an hour of video games, that won’t help them at all. They should instead do more math, only playing bonus video games when they have made a major breakthrough, like scoring 25 points above their previous score, or making the honor roll, etc.
To encapsulate, I think that people should reward themselves not immediately. Instead, they should helping themselves prepare for their adulthood and still rewarding themselves, but through long term rewards and thus being successful and not struggling just to find a meal.