Accountability

Commitment devices: how putting money on it keeps you running

6 min read

There's a gap between the person who plans the week's runs on Sunday and the person who has to do them on a wet Wednesday. A commitment device is how you get the first one to bind the second.

What a commitment device actually is

A commitment device is a choice you make in advance that limits your future self's ability to weasel out. The classic image is Ulysses ordering his crew to tie him to the mast so he could hear the Sirens without steering the ship onto the rocks. He knew his in-the-moment self couldn't be trusted, so his planning self took the decision away from him.

You do smaller versions all the time: leaving the biscuits out of the house, setting an alarm across the room, telling a friend you'll meet them at 7am so you can't quietly bail. Each one raises the cost of the lazy choice before the lazy moment arrives.

Why they work: loss aversion

The engine behind the best commitment devices is loss aversion, the well-established finding that losing something feels about twice as bad as gaining the same thing feels good. A future reward is easy to shrug off. A loss you can see coming is not.

Attach a real stake to your goal and the internal argument changes. "I don't feel like running" runs straight into "but I lose money if I don't," and for most people, on most evenings, that's enough to get the shoes on. You're not buying motivation. You're making the skip expensive.

A goal with nothing on the line is a wish. A goal with something on the line is a decision your future self has to honour.

How to set one up for running

You can build a commitment device by hand, and plenty of people do. To make it actually work, get four things right:

• A specific, fair target. "Run more" is unenforceable. "Twelve runs this month" is. Base it on what you already do so it stretches you without setting you up to fail.
• A real, sized stake. Big enough to sting if you lose it, small enough that losing it isn't a disaster. The point is a consequence, not a punishment.
• A neutral referee. If you're the one deciding whether you succeeded, you'll negotiate with yourself. Automatic verification from Strava or your watch removes the temptation.
• A clear destination for the stake. Forfeited money has to go somewhere you won't want it to. Sending it to charity is a popular, clean choice.

The traps to avoid

Commitment devices fail in predictable ways. Watch for these:

• Targets you set when motivated. Sunday-you is optimistic. Set goals for the version of you who's tired, not the one who's fired up.
• Escape hatches. If you can quietly cancel with no cost, it isn't a commitment device, it's a suggestion.
• Turning it into gambling. Betting against other people, where winners take losers' money, is a different and legally fraught thing. A proper commitment device only ever returns your own stake; you can't come out ahead, only whole or short.

Done properly, a commitment device is one of the most effective, best-evidenced tools in behavioural science for closing the intention-action gap. It doesn't rely on you feeling motivated. It just makes following through the path of least resistance, which is exactly what a habit needs while it's still forming. Pair it with a well-designed running habit and you've got both halves of the problem covered: the structure that makes running easy, and the stake that makes skipping hard.