POST-GAME RECAP | MHL’s Men’s 28-Day Mental Health Challenge

I built the MHL as a retail brand to help end the stigma and raise money for mental health charities, but I couldn’t help but want to take it further. I wanted take bring the league to life and make mental health a team sport. So in August, I piloted the MHL’s Men’s 28-Day Mental Health Challenge. Here’s what happened.

The Goal

I wanted to see if we could create an easy, accessible way for men to…

• Engage with their mental health daily
• Understand their triggers and formulate a winning game plan faster
• Get accountability and motivation from a supportive team
• Get comfortable talking about their feelings

Who Participated?

Approximately fifty men from our community volunteered. There were no requirements aside from wanting to improve your mental health, so it wasn’t super targeted. Ages ranged from 19–45, all in different life stages. Around 50% had been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, or both; around 40% had no diagnosis; and the remaining 10% were other diagnosis. They spanned the US from coast to coast along with a few from Canada.

How’d It Work

I split them into two teams and invited them each into a Facebook group. For 28 days, they were asked to do two things…

1. Fill out a scorecard (comment on a post I put up each day) stating whether they won or lost the day and why, and post it within the group. The definition of a win wasn’t about being happy or productive, it’s just how they felt about their day; and actually the real focus wasn’t winning, it was just tracking every day (process, not result) and learning.
2. Read through other’s scorecards and offer support however they could.

My Assumptions & Concerns

Launching this pilot was incredibly scary to be honest. I’m a tech guy and a DJ, not a psychologist. But I had been keeping my own scorecard for months and knew it really helped me, I just needed a bit more accountability to stick with it, which is where the team came in. So I had to shoot the shot.

Before it launched, some assumptions and concerns I had.

1. Would people want to do this? My goal was to get 25 people to test it out, and figured I’d have to hustle to convince people to try it
2. Would the win/loss mentality do more harm than good? Would it be triggering or hurt self-esteem? I knew it had helped me, but was worried I was the outlier.
3. Could this still be effective even though it was being hosted on Facebook, a platform that wreaks havoc on mental health? I knew Facebook couldn’t be a long-term solution, but it was the best option to start.
4. Would guys be willing to share how they felt about their days with strangers? Especially when they weren’t anonymous?
5. Would people feel accountable with a team even if they didn’t have that much in common with them?
6. Would people stay engaged for the entire 28 days? Would they actually benefit from that amount of time? App engagement has notorious falloff. With the UX being weird and generally this requiring hyper-vulnerability, I figured engagement would really suffer.

The Results

While the pilot was far from perfect, it exceeded all my expectations.

2x as Many Participants as Expected

• 53 men volunteered (my goal was to get 25), 44 actually participated

Participation Was Higher Than Expected For All 28 Days

• 61% daily completion rate (people who filled out scorecards each day)
• 75% said they would continue participating longer than 28 days if they could

Key Outcome Metrics Were Really High

These stats are from the post-challenge survey we sent out. Note: Not everyone who participated filled it out, so the data isn’t 100% complete.

• 92% said it gave them a better understanding of their mental health and triggers
• ​96% said sharing their progress with the team held them accountable to tracking
• ​100% said participating with a team was beneficial to their mental health
• ​​77% said it helped them make better decisions throughout the day
• Participants ranked their experience an 8.6/10

People Didn’t Care About Likes and Comments

• One interesting insight is that the engagement (likes and comments) amongst participant posts was pretty low with most scorecards entries only getting 0–3 engagements. I figured this was a sign of trouble, however after do phone interviews with a number of participants, they said they still felt accountable and weren’t there for likes.

Surprise! People didn’t want to be anonymous!

• Only 11% of participants said they would have preferred it to be anonymous

Facebook did hurt participation

If you’re working to improve your mental health, you’re likely trying to limit your time on social networks, a number of participants stated this caused them to skip days in the challenge.

It Wasn’t For Everyone

A number of participants did find it triggering to think of things in a win/loss format or to just read through other’s posts — especially reading wins when they were on a losing streak. Based on the data we have, I wasn’t able to pinpoint the type of person it does and doesn’t work for, which is one of the biggest things I’m trying to figure out with future pilots. This isn’t meant to replace therapy or any serious treatment, but rather be a lightweight intervention that helps you maintain in a supportive environment, so I know that for sure.

Some Testimonials…

• “The MHL really made me realize what made me tick. It helped me determine what is healthy for me and what is not. I got to find out what really causes my losses on a daily basis.”
• “The MHL helped me realize just how bad my mental health was and how exactly I can better it. I can’t say that I’m cured, but I’m on a better path and don’t have to feel alone anymore.”
• “I consider everyone on my team my brothers and they have helped me become accountable for my actions and feel safe in sharing my struggle.”
• “Being apart of the Mental Health League this month has been incredible. Every day is a fight, but that fight gets a bit easier when you know you have a team of people alongside you. It’s easier to get out of bed in the morning and do the things you need to do when you know you’ll be reporting back to a group of peers later in the day.”
• “The MHL challenge was like something that I have never done before. I have never really shared that many details with that many people. I am really glad I joined though. It was a blessing to be able to come to realizations about myself and life. I enjoyed encouraging others and commenting about ways other teammates could improve and grow. This challenge was what I really needed. I did not do many mental health exercises beforehand, but now I really take mental health seriously. I am so appreciative that I could be part of such events. I know I can improve and be on my way to my best possible self.”

What’s Next | We’re Building a Mobile App

While it was far from perfect, the results exceeded all expectations for such a simple pilot. So we’re moving forward and building a mobile app to improve the experience and pilot with more teams.

We’re releasing the beta this week and will add more and more people over time. While many recommended against an app, we believe it’s the only way to combine tracking with team support. Also, we needed to get it off Facebook and other social networks that try to keep you on your phones. Lastly, people wanted push notifications to remind them to fill their scorecard out.

The goal over the coming months is to run an array of pilot teams and optimize them based on team size, team composition, while also testing new app features to see if it will help improve completion rates. We believe daily tracking is the gateway to improving mental health, helping people stay in tune with their feelings, and realize when they need to reach out for help.

Join our Waitlist

If you want to join a future team, signup for our waitlist here.