CUriosity: How can you make your resolutions stick?

In CUriosity, experts across the CU Boulder campus answer questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.

This week, Alix Barasch, a marketing professor in the Leeds School of Business, says that virtual badges and digital trinkets may sound silly, but they really can help you reach your goals. She answers the question: "How do I keep my New Year’s resolution?"

Millions of people open apps each day to protect something with no monetary value but plenty of psychological punch: a streak. Whether it’s logging language lessons, tracking meals, meditating or hitting step goals, missing a day can feel oddly devastating.

There’s a reason it feels that way. Streaks turn progress into a reward of its own, according to Alix Barasch, associate professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business, who studies how technologies influence consumer behavior. 

Alix Barasch

“A streak has no real value in the world, but it has real psychological value,” she says. 

That mental pull may be why streaks (and the apps that track them) help make resolutions stick. Even when apps offer seemingly trivial rewards, they can still influence behavior.

“These apps add an extra layer to goals,” Barasch says. “Tracking streaks and earning badges along the way turns something you might already want to do—like practicing a language or exercising—into something you really care about, even if the reward is just a number or a virtual icon.”

This is gamification, the process of turning ordinary tasks into a kind of game. Apps use badges, streak counts, progress trackers and virtual currencies to make those tasks feel like achievements. For example, the meditation app Calm awards badges for streaks of consecutive days of practice and completing specific programs, such as those for stress and anxiety. For people with fitness goals, the Apple Watch encourages users with three colorful rings that users aim to close each day: “move” (calories burned), “exercise” (activity minutes), and “stand” (moving around for at least 1 minute during 12 hours of the day).

“Tracking your progress, earning badges, keeping a streak—these things all give the behavior a sense of meaning,” Barasch says. 

But apps also dutifully notice if you skip a day’s workout. That can feel bigger than a small slip and really knock your motivation. 

 

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“Psychologically, it’s extra demotivating,” Barasch says. “Breaking a streak affects your likelihood of keeping up the behavior.”

Apps have gotten good at forgiving streak breaks, which can help users overcome slip-ups.

The language app Duolingo, for example, offers “streak repairs” via subscription features or “gems” that can be earned or bought. Users can also preemptively protect their streaks with “freezes.” 

Not surprisingly, sharing streaks with friends or tracking them within a group can make people more likely to stick with a resolution. 

“For me, there does have to be a layer of accountability,” Barasch says. “You don’t necessarily need shared tracking, but social connection helps.”

Over time, streaks reinforce behavior simply by making it part of your routine. Showing up day after day helps solidify those actions into habits that can last even without the digital nudges. To make a resolution stick, she recommends leaning on simple forms of gamification like earning badges to reinforce the behavior long enough for it to become a habit.

And that’s the real goal. 

“If it becomes part of your day,” Barasch says, “you’ll probably keep doing it—even without the rewards.”