Stick to your Goals

I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of accountability and goals. Two years ago when I was training for a triathlon, I was not only becoming a faster runner and swimmer and cycler at a frightening pace, but I was at my lifetime lowest adult weight, and I felt great! It was a lot of work, but I also knew that every hour of training would make the race that much easier to complete. That race made me accountable, and I rose to the task by squeezing as much out of my training sessions and nutrition as I could.

I haven't had a goal that I'm adequately accountable for in a long time, and my eating and exercise have suffered. Some days I feel like eating well and exercising intensely, and others I don't, and I have only my willpower to rely on. Even the two weight loss contests at work, where real money was on the line, didn't do the trick.

So last week when I was invited into the stickK beta I signed up, hoping that it would help. The idea is simple: create a goal, set a penalty for not meeting that goal, and check in at regular intervals.

It's the penalties that are really unique to stickK. You pledge to pay REAL MONEY every week that you fail in your goal. You can send your money to charity, anti-charity (a cause you disagree with), a friend, or a foe. Wow!

I created a weight loss goal, but didn't set any monetary stakes since I was just trying the system out. But when I checked in for the first time last Friday with a failure, and it told me that I would have had to pay a penalty if I had set one up, I honestly freaked out a little. Maybe once a week check-ins with something actually at stake can help me resist the lunchtime cupcakes and reach 138 lbs.

I'm going to set up a new weight loss goal in stickK right now. In the spirit of small attainable goals, I want to lose 3 pounds in 3 weeks. I'm going to give $15 to Andre every time I fail at my weekly goal.

Here we go!

(Note: my starting weight and check-in weights will be the moving average of my weight in Physics Diet.)