A new year – finally! While the world may not have changed much between December 31st and January 1st, for many of us our mindset has. There is something about a new year that brings about renewal, hope, and a fresh motivation to conquer our goals.
Many people have health goals in January – myself included. November and December are indulging months for me, and I look forward to a re-set come January. I’ve found a system that works for me, and I’ve been doing it for years. It works so well for me that I find I can keep it up the entire year – with the exception being December!
Here’s my secret to staying motivated with my health goals all year: I pay myself.
Yep – I have my goals printed on a spreadsheet, and every day that I meet my goals I earn money for something my husband and I call “mad money”. This money is a no questions asked account where I can spend it on whatever I want to spend it on. The money I earn from meeting my goals gets paid into that account. It’s a bit of a game to me with “bonuses” and “double bonuses” to help keep me motivated. My husband has his own spreadsheet of goals and does this with me, which is also hugely motivating.
Goals
My husband and I each have 7 goals (keeping them equal was important to me, for equal earning opportunities). These are health goals for me, things that are attainable daily but were not always happening as regularly as I wanted. My goals are:
- 70 ounces of water daily
- Flossing every day
- Vitamins daily
- Exercise 4x per week
- Eyes – my eye doctor has me doing warm compresses daily
- Closed Apple Rings
- No desserts – currently 6 days of no extra sweets, but this goal fluctuates with the seasons!
You can see how some of these are easy money, while others take much more discipline and motivation. I wanted some goals on both sides of the spectrum.
Scoring
At the end of every day, before I go to bed, I “check my boxes”. I have this chart sitting next to my bed every night and give myself a checkmark for every goal I accomplished. At the end of the two weeks I add up the totals.
- Every checked box equals ten cents. I set ten cents because it is easy to add quickly. However, I am not necessarily motivated by just a dime, so we came up with “bonuses” and “double bonuses” as well.
- A “bonus” is a perfect week in that category. For example if I had 7 days of meeting my water goal I would get a “bonus” for water. My bonus amount is an additional $1. This is added to the checked boxes, so that category that week would earn $1.70.
- I choose one category that I’m really finding a hard time meeting. Right now it’s the “dessert” category, so this is my double bonus category for the time being. If I meet my goal in this category it’s worth an extra $2.
The money may not sound like it adds up to a lot, but for me it’s enough of a game and competition with my husband that it really works. We’re competitive enough that I am annoyed when he “earns” more than I do, and often motivate myself to “earn” more next week than the week before. The best part is that it works for us; we’ve said over and over throughout the past several years that without these charts we would not find the motivation to fit in some of these things consistently.
Kristen's Korner 