Maintaining motivation is hard regardless of what month it is. Who wants salad when you can tuck into a nice slice of chocolate cake? Who wants to go for a 10-mile run when Netflix is pumping out so many awesome, new TV shows? Fighting these temptations can be hard, especially in the dreary post-Christmas month of January, which also contains Blue Monday, statistically the most depressing day of the year. In fact, about 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February. But fear not, there is hope.
A number of startups are working hard to utilize new strategies to encourage you to keep on keeping on with your goals. In this article, we will take a look at three startups with innovative methods to ensure you achieve your goals in 2018.
Lazy Jar
Justin Anyanwu
Lazy Jar is a third party Fitbit app designed by Justin Anyanwu, Founder and CEO, to help users develop the discipline they need to achieve their fitness goals. Through the use of negative reinforcement, users are encouraged to achieve their desired fitness goals or pay a financial penalty which is then donated to charity. Users join and make a six-month activity commitment (i.e. 50,000 steps a week). Then they must decide on their penalty price— of which 80% will be donated to childhood cancer research if they don’t meet their goals.
The app aims to ensure that users stick to their goals, or at the very least donate money to a good cause. In this sense, the app can be seen as a win-win, either you benefit or the charity does.
Bond
Bond is an online platform that allows users to effortlessly send handwritten notes on custom stationery from your computer or phone. While Bond’s unique offering might sound at first a bit far off from new year’s resolution goals for someone from Gen Z, given the premise of the business is based on handwritten notes, many new year’s resolutions revolve around making more time for friends and cherishing relationships, and the app is great for adding a personal touch to staying in touch.
Julie Noyce
Additionally, research indicates that writing or typing your goals can make you 42% more likely to achieve them. In light of this, receiving a little-handwritten note at a later date might be a positive self-reminder as to why you started on your new year’s resolution path in the first place, and what you are really striving to achieve.
“Using Bond, our customers can easily type out a reminder to themselves on their phone or computer, have their resolutions written out in pen, and then mailed to their home. When they receive the note about a week later, they’ve held themselves responsible for keeping that resolution. Customers who use our iOS app even use the ‘schedule a note’ feature so that they can receive this reminder at an even later date– all the better to be accountable and to track their own success!“ states Julie Noyce, General Manager, Bond
Pantry Perks
While exercise might be at the top of our list of new year’s resolutions, losing weight and eating healthy are a close second. But there is good news for anyone dreading the idea of choosing carrot sticks over french fries. Thanks to numerous startups, eating healthy is now easier than ever. Moreover, for certain startups, such as Pantry Perks, health benefits aren’t the only reward for eating healthy.
Pantry Perks is an online shop that provides a large selection of Grocery, Wellness and Household items, consisting of a variety of natural, organic & specialty brands. Through their innovative multi-tier Refer-A-Friend program, users can earn multiple cashbacks, month after month.
“At PantryPerks, we believe friends don’t let friends pay a ‘whole paycheck’ to live well. And so, through TRIPLE REWARD loyalty cashbacks on purchases made by you, your friends and friends of friends, you could get the best organic, natural and specialty brands at insane discounts, even free. Live well, spread goodness – Make that your new year resolution”
Additionally, the company also donates 1% of every transaction towards charity. Thanks to this startup you can start the new year eating healthy while benefiting from a unique rewards scheme, and giving back to charity at the same time.
Fighting the temptation to backslide is always going to boil down to a personal choice and willpower, but there are many tricky ways to make the battle of willpower easier on yourself and tip the scale in your favor, whie you fight to make positive changes in your life.
