Carrots and Sticks
Sep. 13th, 2012 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_rose99I saw a really interesting talk this week at the conference I attended.
It was about having resolutions and motivations. Let us say that you decide to lose weight. Let us say that like my husband, you are motivated by something you will give yourself or be rewarded when you get to a goal weight. The speaker did not talk much about carrots... He spent a lot more time talking about sticks.
His story is that he agreed (with a contract!) to lose weight at a certain rate. And if he did not meet his weekly weight goal, he would pay $500 each week. Yes, that is FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. And when I say with a contract, he sold the right to the $500 on ebay. He showed us the page. It went for about $284. And remember, this is not $500 once, it is $500 EVERY WEEK is is above his target weight for that week.
He also talked about the fact that while it may be easy to stick to the resolution initially, the hard part is 6 months to 2 years later. This is true whether your resolution is to lose weight or to go to church every week. So the stick has to still be in place, not just in the short term.
He did suggest for anyone following this path that they make slightly more realistic weight goals (perhaps 0.5 lb a week?) than his. But to help people like him with a wide variety of resolutions, he set up a website. www.stickk.com The idea is that you put money on it. And he said it works much better if you tie other people into it. You might be able to convince your spouse to lie to the website for you... But would you be able to convince your best friend AND your priest AND your cubemate? He said the more people support you in it, the better. Something about us being unwilling to embarrass ourselves in such a way in front of a wide group of friends.
It was about having resolutions and motivations. Let us say that you decide to lose weight. Let us say that like my husband, you are motivated by something you will give yourself or be rewarded when you get to a goal weight. The speaker did not talk much about carrots... He spent a lot more time talking about sticks.
His story is that he agreed (with a contract!) to lose weight at a certain rate. And if he did not meet his weekly weight goal, he would pay $500 each week. Yes, that is FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. And when I say with a contract, he sold the right to the $500 on ebay. He showed us the page. It went for about $284. And remember, this is not $500 once, it is $500 EVERY WEEK is is above his target weight for that week.
He also talked about the fact that while it may be easy to stick to the resolution initially, the hard part is 6 months to 2 years later. This is true whether your resolution is to lose weight or to go to church every week. So the stick has to still be in place, not just in the short term.
He did suggest for anyone following this path that they make slightly more realistic weight goals (perhaps 0.5 lb a week?) than his. But to help people like him with a wide variety of resolutions, he set up a website. www.stickk.com The idea is that you put money on it. And he said it works much better if you tie other people into it. You might be able to convince your spouse to lie to the website for you... But would you be able to convince your best friend AND your priest AND your cubemate? He said the more people support you in it, the better. Something about us being unwilling to embarrass ourselves in such a way in front of a wide group of friends.
