Why You Should Reward Yourself With “Failures” in Achieving Your Fitness Goals

Rewarding yourself can backfire. If you tell yourself, “I’ll only listen to my favorite podcast at the gym,” it only takes a moment of weakness to realize you can cheat and listen to it anytime. Instead, try this: reward yourself with something that doesn’t bring you any pleasure. For example, a checkmark on your calendar.

I first heard this advice on a podcast by writer Tim Clare . He says that to stay motivated, the reward should be so repulsive that you don’t actually work for it. He shared that he checks off a calendar every day he writes, and at the end of the week, completing enough checks earns him a gold star. This approach has worked for me and for others. I have to admit: buying yourself a pack of stickers is ridiculously motivating.

Why Stickers Work Better Than “Real” Rewards

Tim Clare theorizes that this works through cognitive dissonance : we need to change something significant (our behavior) to get something valueless (the sticker), so we try to resolve this dissonance by deciding that we value the behavior change. A poor external reward reinforces our sense that the new habit has intrinsic value.

As my colleague Meredith Dietz wrote , experts believe the secret to lasting motivation lies in our intrinsic goals. Engaging in healthy habits like exercise is only effective if we do them for their own sake, not because we’re spending time at the gym as a means to an end. External rewards like streaks and badges can be so addictive that we lose sight of why we’re doing them in the first place. Note that I’m not talking about chasing streaks; I’m more thinking about sticky notes on a piece of paper or a note on your phone where you write down how many miles you’ve run in a week.

Another type of ineffective reward is a real expense: the promise of a treat (a dessert, a new outfit) once you reach a certain goal. The problem is that if you hate working out so much that you need a bribe to even start, you’ll quickly find a way to get a reward without the effort. There’s nothing stopping you from listening to a “gym-only” podcast at home or ordering the new clothes you planned as a reward for completing the “Couch to 5K” program.

Using ineffective rewards works because they simply reflect your existing motivation. You check off the work you’ve completed today not because the checkmark itself is valuable, but because it reminds you that you’ve kept your promise to yourself. There’s something special about completing this cycle, and these small victories actually boost your self-confidence. According to self-efficacy theory, small victories increase your motivation to continue working toward bigger goals.

The best part about using stickers or checkboxes is that there’s no point in fooling yourself. What would you do—lie to yourself if you didn’t actually go to the gym? But accumulating these numbers or stickers becomes a reward in itself. You’re simply rewarding yourself with the satisfaction of sticking to your habit.

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