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Lacking incentive? Have a few bucks you want to wager on your fitness goals?
Wait, what?
Apparently, attaching a financial penalty, in the form of a donation to a charity or organization whom you detest should you fail to reach your fitness goal (whether it’s a weekly weigh-in, a monthly performance improvement, or whatever else you come up with), can provide that extra frission of motivation some people need. Some folks thrive on competition; others have adequate reserves of self-discipline and drive; for those of us who identify with Daffy in “Ali Baba Bunny,” there’s the financial angle.
This formula plays on a couple of tried-and-true diet and fitness recommendations:
- Have a specific goal. If you’re aiming at an amorphous target, how are you gonna know when you hit it? “Get healthier” is all well and good, but “Lose fifteen pounds before Dragon*Con” is a hell of a lot better.
- Have a deadline. If you have the rest of your life to lose those fifteen pounds, there’s no sense of urgency. Unless you’ve just cut me off in traffic, in which case, you have about three seconds.
- Make your goal(s) public. Having other folks know what you’re up to, and who are apt to hold you to it, will get your butt in gear.
- Have a stick to go with your carrot. Rewards for success improve results, but so do penalties for failure. When there’s no risk, there’s less incentive not to succeed.
That last point is where this particular approach focuses attention. Other things you can do is make a friendly wager with some buddies — money need not be involved. Compromising photos and embarrassing nicknames, on the other hand….
And, if anyone is lacking for a suitably evil destination for those funds, my PayPal account is always an option.
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Just signed up for 10 pounds in 10 weeks for $50. We’ll see!
You realize that this is a hell of a lot more fun for me when I’m the one who gets the money if you don’t reach your goal, right?
I just wish I had thought of the business model: Getting statistically weak willed people to make contracts with no responsibility on our part, to give money to someone else and take %20 off the top!
The whole thing makes me mad. But I figure that is good, because I don’t want sticK.com to get a cut of my anti-charity money either. It’s like a bizzaro universe motivational plan fueled by hate.
[...] Go Public This will keep you on track. After all, it’s hard to fall off the program when a bunch of people are cheering you [...]
I tried something similar a little while ago. It worked great until I got into some serious financial distress and had to stop.
Basically, the goal was that I had to lose at least 5 pounds in a month. Do-able, especially given my tendency to plateau every 20 pounds or so.
I gave a friend $100 at the beginning of the month. At the end of the month, if it worked, he spent the money and got me an awesome present (he would give me really, really good things for months I did well, and mediocre things for months I only barely passed muster). If I failed, I told him to keep the money for the month. He didn’t though, and just banked it up for something really good (but he didn’t tell me that until the end)
@Syn – Sounds like it worked well for you, even if your friend exhibits an admirable level of deviousness.