Understanding gains: Your guide to progress on Bearmore

05 May, 2025

What are gains?

Gains are how Bearmore helps you see progress - not just in general, but in relation to what you care about.

Every time you log an activity - whether it's a workout, meditation, journalling, an ice plunge or something else - you earn gains. These aren’t random points. They’re calculated to reflect how much effort you’re putting in and how that effort supports your personal goals, as you defined in your What Matters statement.

Unlike more typical fitness tracking, gains are personalised, flexible, and grounded in research. They reflect:

  1. What you did

  2. How long you did it

  3. How consistently you’ve been showing up

  4. How they relate to your What Matters statement

Gains are designed to reward effort and show progress, not perfection, and will become useful to you in many different ways as you use Bearmore.

How gains work

Gains are calculated using three core factors:

1. What you did

Every activity you log is mapped to one or more of Bearmore’s core focus areas (like Emotional awareness, Resilience, Purpose, and Agency). These mappings are based on a comprehensive review of research and are directly connected to your What Matters statement.

2. How long you did it

Each activity has an optimal duration range - where it’s most effective. Stay in that zone, and you earn gains efficiently. Go well beyond it, and gains taper off to reflect diminishing returns. More isn’t always better.

3. How often you’ve done it lately

We track activity over a rolling 14-day window. If you’re hitting a healthy rhythm, you’re rewarded. If you’re overdoing it, we taper gains to reflect that too much of anything can backfire.

Example

You log a 34-minute HIIT session. Bearmore recognises that it contributes to specific aspects of your What Matters statement. We also recognise that 34 minutes is a bit long for a HIIT session, but can be okay if you don’t overload on sessions over the next 14 days. You earn 19 gains. 12 of those are directly aligned with your What Matters statement.

How gains evolve over time

Weeks 1–2: just show up

When you’re starting out, your gains might feel low, scattered, or inconsistent. That’s normal. The system doesn’t have much data on you yet.

These early sessions are about establishing rhythm and letting the system learn how your behaviours relate to your What Matters statement.

Your job in these first weeks? Just stay consistent and keep on logging your activity sessions.

Weeks 3–4: patterns emerge

Once you’ve got a few sessions under your belt, the system starts showing you real insight:

  1. Where you’re investing: Which focus areas are stacking up?

  2. Where you’re light: Are any dimensions getting ignored?

  3. What works best: Which sessions earn you the most gains—especially the ones tied to your What Matters?

  4. Your rhythm: What pace feels sustainable and effective? (Maybe that’s 150 gains/week. Maybe it’s 400. The point is: you’ll start to know.)

You’re not guessing anymore. You’re learning how your inputs shape your outcomes.

Month 2+: you know your range

By now, you’ve got a baseline. You’ll know what a solid week looks like for you - and what’s realistic when life gets chaotic.

Some weeks, you’ll earn 400+ gains. Other weeks, 100 is enough. The point isn’t hitting a number. It’s alignment.

Your What Matters visual evolves too, becoming a mirror: showing where you're building momentum - and where you might be slipping.

What gains do for you

  1. Track real progress

  2. Build habitual momentum

  3. Deliver smart feedback

Gains help you stay honest with your effort—and your evolution.

What gains are not

  1. Perfection: You don’t lose ground for taking a break.

  2. Comparison: This isn’t a leaderboard. This is your story.

  3. Fixed: Our scoring evolves as we learn more. You get better, and so does the system.


If you’re a data nerd, welcome

There’s an entire logic engine underneath this. Gains are built with capped calculations, adaptive weightings, and auditable scoring logic.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: duration score

We calculate a multiplier based on:

  1. Length of your session vs. optimal range

  2. Effectiveness of that length for the specific activity

Formula:

  1. Duration score = (Session length / Optimal length) * Effectiveness multiplier

Step 2: frequency score

Based on how often you’ve done the activity in the past 14 days.

Formula:

  1. Frequency score = Effectiveness multiplier for your frequency bracket

Step 3: practice intensity score

Your total session intensity is:

  1. Practice intensity = Duration score x Frequency score

Step 4: focus area gains

Each activity impacts multiple focus areas (like Purpose, Recovery, or Focus). Each has an impact rating.

Formula:

  1. Focus area gains = Impact rating x Practice intensity score

Step 5: total gains

We sum up gains across focus areas, and also roll them up into broader wellbeing components:

  1. Physical, Emotional, Social, Intellectual, and Self

Final output example:

  1. "Your breath counting session earned 9.3 gains. Emotional: 4.2 | Physical: 1.3 | Intellectual: 2.6 | Social: 0.5 | Self: 0.6"

Capping logic

We cap gains per session to prevent gaming or overtraining:

  1. Duration cap: Gains stop accruing after 2x the ‘exhaustive’ duration.

  2. Frequency cap: Gains stop accruing after 2x the ‘maxing out’ session threshold.

When you hit a cap, the system lets you know. Gently.

"Gains were capped for this session. This may reflect a research limitation or signal that you're practising beyond optimal levels. Let us know if you think we missed something."

Gains may seem simple on the surface—but they’re grounded in hard data, built with care, and built to scale with you.

Stack your gains. Stay in motion.

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