Yup, I broke out the ol’ wallet, now I’m officially forking out £32 a month for the privilege of exercising.
And after my intro session today, I couldn’t be happier about it.
This is definitely one of the more expensive routes I can go to get my exercise, I could (and do) run outside, go for long walks or do body weight exercises at home.
All great methods but as winter creeps in the temptation to not do them become greater and greater.
I consider myself a very motivated person, I love working towards goals and pursuing projects just for the fun. But even I can get stuck sometimes, my secret weapon?
Getting some skin in the game.
If Flint is forking over 32 of his hard-earned pounds every month you can be damn sure he’s going to get his money’s worth!
It’s actually been shown that people work harder to not lose money than they do to gain more. A group of 62 American students were given a series of anagrams to solve, 2 of them being unsolvable. Half were told they’d get a quarter for every correct one they solved and the other half were given $1.50 and told they’d lose a quarter for everyone they failed to solve.
The group that were facing losing a quarter tried for an average of 5 minutes longer on the unsolvable puzzles. And that was at the thought of losing 50 cents! Scale it up and think how much harder you’d work.
I used the same thing to help get stuck into my business, I spent about £100 on hosting for websites and other stuff before I started making any money, and the thought of that money being wasted kept pushing me forward.
I tried blogging before that on a free blog but it was too easy to stop. I had nothing to lose.
I’m yet to try this but I’ve read/heard Seth Godin talk about setting aside money that is on a timer to be released to a charity you hate if you miss a self-imposed deadline.
I’m yet to find a good excuse to try this but it would definitely work, the thought of missing the deadline and £100 of my money going straight to the Trump administration is just horrifying. Having to live with that would just be brutal.
On a smaller scale, I have a three-way bet of £10 with a couple of friends, the first one to become a millionaire wins. They clearly, don’t know how hard I’ll work not to lose a tenner!
So if you’re failing to start or have trouble committing, get some skin in the game, pay the starting costs and do it.
– Flint
I’m just about to join the swimming club at my leisure centre for the same reason. Been out on daily walks since beginning of June, it chucked it down last Thursday and I wimped out of my walk. Bear in mind I have full wet weather walking gear for when we go to the Lake District – and I still didn’t go. Went swimming instead.
So now I know I’m a fair weather walker when it’s for pure exercise reasons I need to join swimming club at £24 a month otherwise it’s £5 a pop. Got to get my money’s worth!
PS. Like the new design!
Thank you Tupenny! Nice of you to stop by, I like it too. £5 a pop is so much! At least that’s only 5 times a month before you’re making money back on it. I think that’s fair, walking in heavy rain gets old very fast if it’s just for exercise regardless of how much wet weather gear you have.
P.S. Thanks for subscribing!