Great tips to help you stick to your resolutions
If you’re like most people, this is the time of the year where you reflect and review on the year that’s about to come to end and pledge to shed bad habits and improve your life. But if you’re planning to make a New Year’s Resolution come midnight, chances are you know you’re probably not stick to your resolution. It’s often the same old routine: you start with a clear, reasonable goal; you have a plan on how you’re going to tackle the goal; it goes well for a few weeks, months even, but then before you know it, you’re back to your old ways.
If this sounds all too familiar, then you’ll want to know about a new website that’s making people come good on their goals – and if they don’t, it’s got a fairly good “punishment” for not sticking to your promises – donating to charity. Called Promise or Pay, the online social motivation platform combines charity with the basic human wish to achieve goals.
As founder Jay Boolkin explains to Over60, “The process is based on behavioral economics research which shows that when it comes to achieving goals that chance of success increases by 33 per cent if it is shared with others and by up to 72 per cent if money is put on the line.”
So how does it work?
1. Make a promise – Whether it’s courageous, wacky or just a bad habit you need to give up, pledge your promise online.
2. Put money on it – Promise to donate money to charity if you don’t follow through on your promise. It can be any amount of money you can spare.
3. Get support – Share your promise with others and encourage them to donate to your charity of choice if you keep your promise.
As Jay says, “If you break your promise, you donate. If you keep your promise, your supporters donate. Promise or Pay ensures a win-win outcome and that you are left feeling good and doing good no matter what happens.”
The best part of this initiative is that it’s helping charities fundraise in new and innovative ways.
“The power of Promise or Pay is its ability to target a larger audience than just those who usually donate to charity since the act of donating is a result of a secondary intention –the primary intention to carry out the promised behaviour,” explains Jay, adding, “In making it easier, more efficient and more rewarding for people to reach their goals Promise or Pay naturally and indirectly increases the public’s participation in fundraising and thereby reduces the cost of raising these funds for charities.”
To find out more, visit the Promise or Pay website here.
Related links:
People are happier when they do good
The material things proven to make you happy
Simple exercises to strengthen your willpower