The Power of Negative Thinking
Is paying a penalty the most effective way to create a fitness habit?
My inclination has never been to jump out of bed and go for a run.
In fact, my husband would be the first to say that I’m not a morning person — I wake up groggy and in a foul mood with anything short of 9 hours of sleep, which means every weekday is a struggle. And yet, through years of trial and error I’ve found that mornings are when I’m least likely to skip a workout. By making a plan the night before, laying out our favorite workout clothes and (however reluctantly) setting an alarm for an hour or two earlier, we set our intention for the day and take a step toward our best selves. The problem arises when the alarm goes off and we realize how early it is, how dark it still is, and how little motivation we feel to get up.
For years I tried to work with my circadian rhythm, thinking I just wasn’t cut out for anything too difficult before 10:00 am. I slogged through evening workouts, took up running, ran a few races, and even lost 25 pounds in the process. But without fail, after awhile I would slack off, begin to skip workouts and make excuses for why I couldn’t work out. At first these excuses were legit — urgent deadlines at work, dinner with a friend, a concert we had tickets for. But over time the qualifications for my excuses began to change, and I found myself often making a work deadline seem worse than it really was just to avoid going to the gym, or rationalizing why I deserved a night off.
At the same time, part of me also felt that we were all collectively wasting precious evening hours on treadmills. Countless times I’d tried to make dinner plans with colleagues and friends only to hear that they had to go to a class, and many Friday nights of mine were spent in yoga classes. But we live in New York City! With so many cultural events happening every night everywhere you turn, how is it possible that this is the best way to spend our time? Wouldn’t it be far better to get our workouts out of the way in the morning so that we could go to that gallery opening, see that band, or experience that new restaurant any day of the week? What’s the point of living in such an expensive city if you can’t experience everything it has to offer because you’ve got to go to spin class?
And so, I resolved this year to work out in the mornings, to run as the sun was coming up, to get up at 6:00 am for that fitness class and see what happened. For awhile it worked; I enjoyed seeing the sun rise, getting fresh air and feeling that sense of accomplishment — especially when I’d find myself thinking with dread during the day about going to the gym after work, and then remembering with surprise: “I already worked out this morning!” That feeling of freedom and wide-open possibility made me look forward to evenings and less likely to stay late at the office.
I can’t say that I experienced something amazing every night that I wasn’t at the gym, but I did find myself making more plans during the week and exploring the city a bit more. And I arrived at the office each day with more energy than if I hadn’t worked out.But in time, the sense of accomplishment faded and I found myself staying up too late, hitting the snooze button too many times, or just re-setting my alarm and thinking “I’ll work out tomorrow.” This had the expected effect and I slid back into a pattern of working late, snacking for energy, and gaining weight again. I felt terrible, and neither morning runs nor the classes at our YMCA were compelling enough to offset my lethargy.
But after years of trial and error, I’ve found a guaranteed, no-fail way to make it to the gym: pay a penalty when you skip a workout.
My epiphany happened this spring when I signed up for ClassPass, and it worked like a charm. I had the ability to go to an unlimited number of boutique fitness studios in the city, and the appeal of new classes combined with the thrill of nabbing a spot in a sought-after studio made it fun. But I quickly found out the true motivator of ClassPass: paying a penalty if you skip a scheduled class. (Up too late binge-watching on Netflix? Cough up $15 if you want to sleep in.) I did miss a couple of classes in the four months I was a member, but the decision wasn’t easy and I attended far more classes than I would have if I hadn’t been threatened with a fee. I ended up canceling the service when they hiked up their rates, thinking surely as a responsible adult I could fit in a workout three or four measly times a week. But after a few weeks I was back to hitting snooze and looking for a new solution.
This week, RunKeeper announced a partnership with GymPact that lets you set a goal for workouts, get rewarded when you complete them and pay a penalty when you don’t. There have been similar apps and services on the market that allow people to set a goal and either self-report progress or check into a gym, then pay a penalty if they don’t. The difference is that this partnership allows you to track a workout by GPS so that walking, running and biking outdoors count too. While the idea of signing up for a service designed to make you pay a penalty strikes me as self-flagellation, studies have shown people are actually more motivated by penalties than by rewards. It’s an effect psychologists call loss aversion, and effusively it means people value the loss of something twice as much as gaining something. In other words, we’re motivated as much by the risk of losing $15 as we would be with the chance of getting $30. And I can tell you that I’ve tried promising myself lots of different rewards for health goals over the years, but nothing has motivated me as effectively as the threat of paying a penalty did.
That’s a powerful difference, which got me thinking: What if we applied the power of negative reinforcement and loss aversion to other areas of our lives? If the fee for not cooking a healthy dinner was coughing up $20, would we still order takeout? If the penalty for not putting away your things at night was $5, would it get done more often? What would happen if instead of an allowance given after chores were done, we gave our kids the allowance first and began taking money away for every task not completed?
I don’t know if I’ll sign up for the workout penalty apps; I just joined a gym near my office that currently lures me in with shiny new equipment, saunas and classes. But in the process of learning new moves and workouts this year, I learned a far more important lesson: the next time you set an important goal, use the power of negative reinforcement to make it stick.
