Spafinder Wellness 365 has partnered with online course provider eMindful to launch “The 1% Challenge,” a programme designed to help participants take a mindful approach to small, incremental changes that over time can help them reach and maintain their weight management, stress, pain management, fitness and other goals.

Developed by eMindful, the campaign works with the idea that people are more likely to succeed by introducing small changes over time than by attempting massive, re-directional change all at once.

The 1% Challenge offers free, live, mindfulness sessions online led by eMindful’s instructors. The programme challenges Americans to put just one per cent of each day — 14 minutes — toward introducing small, manageable behaviour changes, with the goal of developing new habits that can be sustained throughout the new year and beyond.

“Huge changes undertaken all at once are hard,” said Kelley McCabe, eMindful chief executive officer. “Our 1% Challenge starts with the premise that anyone can improve by one per cent at a time. For example, if you improve your strength by one percent each day, you double it in 70 days. You can improve your brain fitness as well, through mindfulness practice. Small changes quickly add up to a big difference. And over a lifetime, that can be transformational.”

Participants may sign up to begin their personal challenge during the month of January 2016 – a move timed to fit with new year’s resolutions. Once active, they gain access to a free 30-day membership to eMindful Life, which offers online access to live classes with new topics every day, a 24/7 conversation board facilitated by eMindful’s teachers, support tools and more.

Participants are rewarded with free courses and memberships to eMindful for meeting challenge goals.

Challenge participation also benefits eMindful’s charity partner MindUP; for every 25,000 minutes of Mindful Daily meditation practice, across all Challenge participants, eMindful will donate US$1,000 (€919, £684) to The Hawn Foundation’s MindUP, a research-based training programme designed to help children self-regulate behaviour and mindfully engage in the focused concentration necessary for academic success.

As a 1% Challenge partner, Spafinder Wellness 365 will actively promote the Challenge to its audience of followers and its 25,000 wellness partners worldwide.

“At Spafinder, we believe wellness is a way of life, not a fad or a trend, and The 1% Challenge is a manageable way for everyone to introduce the good habits of mindfulness and thoughtful behaviours into their daily routine,” said Spafinder Wellness Inc. COO John Bevan.

“Even better, the Challenge directly supports the efforts of MindUP, which introduces the same best practices to young children to help them develop the healthy habits that last a lifetime.”