Going to the Gym a Chore? Try “Temptation Bundling”
We have all heard that a great way to keep working toward your goals, is to reward yourself for some of the small milestones along the way. For example, you want to lose 15 pounds, so at 5 pounds, you’ll buy yourself new running shoes, and at 10 pounds, treat yourself to massage, etc. We all have days though, where those goals seem far away, and we need some sort of immediate gratification as a little extra push to get our butts moving. For those days, we suggest possibly “temptation bundling.”
Temptation bundling is basically pairing something you’d rather not do, with something that you could consider a guilty pleasure. For example, Wharton professor and researcher Katherine Milkman, told Lifehacker.com, she knew she needed to go to the gym more, so she allowed herself to listen to “less-than-scholarly” audiobooks, only while she was working out. Soon she she was the gym 5 days a week!
(CONFESSION: We totally admit, that we sometimes use our treadmill time to catch up on some Real Housewives.)
The article goes on to talk about how you can use this method for other tasks, such as catching up on work emails while getting a pedicure, and you can read about it here.
So we want to know – do you use temptation bundling as a way of going to the gym? What’s your guilty pleasure? Tell us in the comments!