Beeminder is a goal-setting service that uses financial stakes to ensure you stick to habits. It plots your progress on a graph with a “bright red line” (or yellow brick road); if you cross this line by failing to meet your goals, you pay a monetary pledge. For example, if you set a goal to walk 10K steps a day but you miss or derail, beeminder will send you numerous reminders until, eventually, a pledge of $5 will be deducted from your credit card.
This reminded me of something I read in Atomic Habits, where James Clear talks about an entrepreneur named Bryan Harris who wanted to build daily habits for losing weight. To force consistency, he made a contract between himself, his wife, and his trainer: “If Bryan doesn’t do these two items then the following consequence will be enforced: He will have to dress up each workday and each Sunday morning for the rest of the quarter. Dress up is defined as not wearing jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, or shorts. He will also give Joey (his trainer) $200 to use as he sees fit if he misses one day of logging food.”
This works because 1) you create an accountability partner and 2) you now have the fear of losing something (loss aversion).
Loss aversion is a cognitive bias mostly used in behavioral economics that stems from the idea that the psychological pain of losing is twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. In this case, the pain of losing $5.
I think this is a smart service and the only one that worked for me so far.
Credit to Ali Abdaal and Aman Manazir for mentioning Beeminder in their video.
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