Accountability

One of the greatest reasons people fail to achieve their goals is that they try to do it all by themselves.  Perhaps it is a matter of pride.  You might not want to admit to friends and family that you want to make some changes in your life.  Or, perhaps it is a fear of failure.  If you don’t tell anyone that you are trying to change, you won’t embarrass yourself if you fail.

Whatever the reason, you dramatically increase your chance of success if you create a network of accountability.  What is that?  Find a friend or two, share your plan to improve your life and ask them to regularly ask you about your progress.  This can be as simple as giving your friend a schedule to the things you are going to do every day and then having a very brief phone call at the end of the day to report in on how you did.

Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds.  That goal could make you feel much better about yourself especially when bathing suit season arrives.  You have created your roadmap for losing the weight.  You plan to exercise in the gym for an hour three times each week for the next year.  In addition, you plan to keep track of your calories each day and to limit your calories to 2,000 each day.  Your plan is to lose 2 pounds each month for 10 months.

You share your plan with your friend Susan and ask her if she will help to hold you accountable.  She agrees and you set up a time to check in with each other each day.  On the call you tell Susan if you went to the gym and how long you worked out.  You also share your caloric intake for the day.  Each month Susan asks how much weight you have lost.

Just knowing you are going to check in with Susan each day can be tremendously valuable in supporting your determination to reach your goal.  Certainly there will be times when your motivation to stick with your plan weakens and wavers.  It is on those days that your accountability coach may be just the thing to keep you on track.