Try this: The Daily List of Treats

The weirdly transformative power of giving yourself gifts.

Welcome to Making Time. Each week, I share thoughts and ideas for making more time for yourself by building creative energy and establishing rituals and practices. This year, I’m also attempting The 2024 Slowdown, which you can do with me. If you’d like to follow along, you can subscribe for free.

My alarm sounded at 5am on Saturday. I’d been looking forward to this day for weeks, so despite the ungodly hour, I didn’t hesitate. I hopped out of bed, took a shower, and poured some coffee into my travel mug.

The sun was just coming up over the cow pastures as we made the hour-long drive to the furthest part of the city. All along the way, I thought of how our life was about to change again.

After a brief stop for donuts (eaten anxiously off the paper bag), we finished the drive and ended up in a mostly-empty parking lot. Parked there was an enormous yellow school bus, with a dozen or so people queued up along its side.

When we reached the front of the line, I gave the coordinator a name. Another volunteer disappeared into the bus and came back with him.

It’s Gordy, our new rescue dog.

Gordy had just arrived on the bus all the way from Texas, a 3-day ordeal that left him stressed, confused, and more than a little stinky. More than anything, Gordy needed to feel safe and cared for.

He also needed some structure and direction. If there’s one surefire way to provide all of these things for a dog, it’s with the strategic use of treats.

Over the next few days, Gordy was my constant companion. As we got to know each other, I applied treats liberally to many situations. Laying calmly? Treat. Ignoring the cats? Treat. Sitting on cue? Treat.

What I’ve begun to realize is that positive reinforcement works not just for dogs; it works just as well on yourself.

Treating Yourself

I’m not an expert on dog psychology, but treats seem to work in 2 ways:

1. It provides positive associations, which help to reinforce a desired behavior or attitude.

2. It helps the dog to bond with you, as the miraculous source of this treasure.

When you give yourself treats on a daily basis, you can accomplish the same things. You can use treats to build up certain behaviors or habits, especially ones that are difficult for you.

You can also use them to simply build a better relationship with yourself, training your own mind that you care for yourself and feel you deserve nice things.

Martha Beck recommends in The Joy Diet that you give yourself a minimum of 3 treats a day. One in the morning, one in the evening, and one for taking a purposeful risk. The treats need not cost money or be food related, just some small pleasure to reward yourself, each day.

How I’m Building Treats Into My Life

Here’s what I’ve been doing.

Each morning, I scribble out a short list of possible treats for the day. Here are a few examples from my journal:

• Make a blackberry tea latte (I saw this recipe on Pinterest and wanted to try it. It was delicious.)

• Dance break

• 10 minutes of stretching at lunch

• Sit outside and knit

• Light a new candle

• Pick flowers for my desk

• Make coffee, sit on the sofa, and collect inspiration for a future project

I’ve started to add these into one long ongoing list, something I can turn to whenever I need a little pick-me-up that costs almost nothing other than a few minutes of time.

Do Treats Really Matter?

I’ll be honest, when I read about this practice in The Joy Diet, it felt a bit superficial. How on earth could something as simple as a few minutes of pleasure injected randomly into my day create any sort of meaningful change?

I was wrong. This was exactly what I needed.

There’s nothing frivolous about giving yourself the gift of enjoying your life, as many times throughout your day as you can manage. Not only do you get enjoyment from the treat itself, but you slowly begin to understand that you do, in fact, deserve to have the small and simple pleasures that you want.

Sometimes, we are not that different from dogs. We all need a little reinforcement, and we are fortunate in that we can give it to ourselves.

Try it!

I’d encourage you to try this yourself, especially if you struggle with self-compassion.

Start a list of simple, everyday treats. Just set a timer for 5 minutes and list as many ideas as you can. You can always add to it later.

Then, at the start of each day, write down 4-5 ideas for your daily treats. Remember, while you can use 1 or more to reward yourself for doing something difficult, I’ve found that the ones you give yourself for no reason at all are equally important.

What’s your favorite way to treat yourself?

PS: Gordy is adjusting beautifully. He and Lucy are staging their own version of wrestlemania outside my doorway as I type this.

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