Thread: Hopefully a helpful tip for beginners doing ADA

For those practicing ADA/Lucid Living (and reality checks for that matter): When you first start trying to keep up awareness and you've suddenly realized that you had become absentminded -- after becoming aware again -- reward yourself. Don't become depressed that you had forgotten. You tackled an important part! You remembered! And you keep remembering more and more until it becomes 100%! Keep at it because it will pay off.

I really like that.
It seems like a very positive approach to practicing something, I'll definitely try it, thanks!

nice trick!
but...how to reward ourselves? for example, we remember to do RC, 2 times per hour...so...if we want to reward ourselves 2 times per hour, that would be a lot of rewards in a day!!!! what is a short reward that is not time consuming and also effective to make us to feel happy?

Originally Posted by yaya

nice trick!
but...how to reward ourselves? for example, we remember to do RC, 2 times per hour...so...if we want to reward ourselves 2 times per hour, that would be a lot of rewards in a day!!!! what is a short reward that is not time consuming and also effective to make us to feel happy?

lol By reward yourself I really meant just give yourself a pat on the back, realize that you're improving. Give yourself positive thoughts instead of negative. Allow yourself to feel that fluttering in your heart, the excitement.

You don't have to reward yourself every time you do a reality check, just whenever you start to feel negative emotions or whenever you start to feel like you're not getting everywhere. You ARE getting somewhere.

Think something like "Hey, y'know what? I remembered to do a reality check, and because of this, I'm now closer to performing one in my dreams!" Imagine becoming Lucid simply because you remembered to do that reality check in the day, and feel the excitement from that thought.

*sigh* That's a great idea indeed, but much easier said than done for someone who tends to be a perfectionist in some things, lucid dreaming included. I've heard about mentally rewarding yourself when you remember before, it's good and all, I did try it but for me, the dominant thoughts very shortly were still "damn it, I forgot again! I'm so bad at this, how am I gonna get better if I keep being this bad" something like that.. I wish I could replace that with "oh yeah, I remember! Good, good job, the more often I remember, the better" but it's not something I can just decide and do and keep doing..

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

*sigh* That's a great idea indeed, but much easier said than done for someone who tends to be a perfectionist in some things, lucid dreaming included. I've heard about mentally rewarding yourself when you remember before, it's good and all, I did try it but for me, the dominant thoughts very shortly were still "damn it, I forgot again! I'm so bad at this, how am I gonna get better if I keep being this bad" something like that.. I wish I could replace that with "oh yeah, I remember! Good, good job, the more often I remember, the better" but it's not something I can just decide and do and keep doing..

I think that losing your awareness and bringing it back is part of the practice. Whenever you are doing any form of ADA just think that the act of bringing your awareness back is improving your skills because it is. I think it is almost impossible to keep up ADA all day long. At some point that awareness is going to slip. Now maybe for people who have mastered it it only slips for about one second and their awareness only drops a little bit (or I could be wrong and they keep the awareness up all day )

So I think to get rid of those negative thoughts you can just override those thoughts with the thought that bringing your awareness back is improving your skills, and its slowly getting you better. Every skill takes time to learn, so you have to have a positive attitude about it and stick with it for it to work.

Hopefully I helped

Just realized I basically restated what the OP said. Sorry about that but hopefully this still helps

Originally Posted by Sharpshoey

I think that losing your awareness and bringing it back is part of the practice. Whenever you are doing any form of ADA just think that the act of bringing your awareness back is improving your skills because it is. I think it is almost impossible to keep up ADA all day long. At some point that awareness is going to slip. Now maybe for people who have mastered it it only slips for about one second and their awareness only drops a little bit (or I could be wrong and they keep the awareness up all day )

So I think to get rid of those negative thoughts you can just override those thoughts with the thought that bringing your awareness back is improving your skills, and its slowly getting you better. Every skill takes time to learn, so you have to have a positive attitude about it and stick with it for it to work.

Hopefully I helped

Just realized I basically restated what the OP said. Sorry about that but hopefully this still helps

You're right, you're right, bringing it back is logically proof of improvement, I'm just having the wrong mindset about it. I'll try to remember what you guys said when I remember I tuned out from now on.

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

*sigh* That's a great idea indeed, but much easier said than done for someone who tends to be a perfectionist in some things, lucid dreaming included. I've heard about mentally rewarding yourself when you remember before, it's good and all, I did try it but for me, the dominant thoughts very shortly were still "damn it, I forgot again! I'm so bad at this, how am I gonna get better if I keep being this bad" something like that.. I wish I could replace that with "oh yeah, I remember! Good, good job, the more often I remember, the better" but it's not something I can just decide and do and keep doing..

Yes, basically what Sharpshoey said. It's important that you recognize that it's part of the practice.

When you're trying to change your mindset about something, don't say things to yourself robotically. (This is what I was doing for the longest.) Believe your own words. Understand them.

Sometimes when I feel the bad thoughts coming I think of scenarios that make me realize I am improving. For example: Would you rather have remembered to do one reality check today? Or none at all?

And you didn't forget, you remembered!

Thank you Brite!
I thought by reward, you mean i have to give myself something like a chocolate! LOL!!!! yes, good words have positive energies to keep us motivated!

Originally Posted by yaya

Thank you Brite!
I thought by reward, you mean i have to give myself something like a chocolate! LOL!!!! yes, good words have positive energies to keep us motivated!

Giving yourself something like a chocolate is an actual LD technique too, lol.

Anyway I remembered a few times to be mindful and it feels good man o_o Much better than beating myself up mentally