Photo by Allan Mas
We all have goals—and we try our best to keep them front and center as we navigate our own noisy lives.
If you're like me, you can use a little push to get things done. Sometimes, I have to say things aloud to ensure that someone else is aware that I have a goal, even if it's small. It's announcing to my husband that, yes, I fully intend to go for a walk at 12:00 pm, after my morning meeting. It's telling my mom that I do plan to start potty training my son three weeks after his 2nd birthday.
The thing about vocalizing our goals? It's basically a type of audible manifestation and it works.
Research by The American Society of Training and Development has shown that publicly stating our goals increases our chances of achieving them by 65%. Having a dedicated accountability partner boosts your chances of success to 95%.
Accountability is pretty successfully used in the ever-present diet and exercise world, but it works well for shared goals in personal and professional development, so what are we waiting for?
How to Transform Personal Responsibility Into Accountability
Whether you're trying to kick a bad habit, start a new habit, or work towards an entirely new goal, taking some of your internal accountability and externalizing it has numerous advantages beyond an A+ success rate.
By partnering with someone who acts as a co-mentor, you are inevitably taking time to exchange perspectives and ideas, and achieve real growth. Instead of battling your own spiraling internal thought processes, you can have meaningful scheduled meetings with your buddy.
During these meetings, you can discuss progress towards your goals, the pitfalls you experienced, how to avoid future problems, and what to focus on ahead of your next meeting.
Internal Accountability
Much like intrinsic motivation, internal accountability is based in being accountable only to yourself. As such, many of your goals are acknowledged by you and only you. if you fail to achieve—or give up on attempting to achieve—your goals, you also might internalize the "failure."
The problem with internal accountability is two-fold. There is nobody outside of yourself helping you to approach your goals in different ways, nor encouraging you as you meet milestones along the way. Secondly, if you perceive to have "failed" in your pursuit of a goal, you may spiral into negative thinking, feelings of impostor syndrome, and fear of approaching new goals in the future.
So let's talk about externalizing some accountability, too.
External Accountability
By partnering up with an accountability partner, you are externalizing at least a portion of your goal. This takes some pressure off, provides support, and (if you choose a great partner) it replaces your negative internal thoughts and emotions with challenges and insights to push you both forward.
Last, but certainly not least, there is the added bonus of helping your accountability partner achieve their own goals as you pursue yours.
How to Create Successful Accountability Partnerships
1. Choose Someone With the Characteristics of a Good Accountability Partner
Your successful partnership is going to hinge on who you choose to partner with. As such, it's important to find someone who will keep you on track—someone who has strengths where you have weaknesses.
When picking your accountability buddy, find someone who has demonstrated good discipline in their own work. Choose someone who can teach you new things, who is willing to share honest input, and who is highly motivated to work alongside you on goals.
Last, but certainly not least, it's great to choose someone who you'd like to impress—someone who will celebrate your success alongside their own.
- Someone With Similar Goals and Aspirations
- Someone WIth a Proven Record of Self Motivation
- Someone Who Will Give Honest Feedback + Encouragement
Just like you would want your accountability partner to provide motivation and encouragement, you also might want to team up with someone who recognizes your weaknesses and provides a way through them.
Can My Best Friend, Family Member, or Partner Be My Co-Mentor?
There are pros and cons to partnering up with a close friend, family member, or even a spouse. Consider these carefully before choosing your partner.
Pros:
Accountability buddies who are also close friends or family members know who you are, how you work, your strengths, and your weaknesses. This can be a huge advantage because this person knows how to pull you from a negative thought spiral or lapse in confidence by recalling other successes you've achieved.
Cons:
The cons of choosing someone close to you? If your accountability partner is someone close to you who also has something to gain, their assistance can be clouded.
Working alongside someone close can strengthen your relationship and help you both to succeed beyond what you initially thought possible. The key is being honest about what you typically bring out in one another, how much enabling you allow (ahem, like is the third glass of wine really the best idea during this mid-Tuesday check-in?), and whether you will both feel comfortable pushing and cheerleading one another towards shared success.
2. Profile Your Common Excuses + Personal Weaknesses
It's time for some honesty. Let's talk about your kryptonite.
When starting an accountability partnership, it's a great practice to take time to highlight elements that get in the way of achieving lofty goals—like negative thoughts, excuses, bad habits, and other obligations.
A great way to identify these common obstacles is by creating a three-column list with your partner. Here's how. On the top of a piece of paper or shared document, title your big goal. Beneath, create three columns. Call them:
- Personal Weaknesses
- Common Excuses
- Obligations That Interfere
Be honest in your self-assessment and share these with your accountability partner. This gives them insights into the excuses you might use when you can't reach a specific goal.
This list will serve as a great resource for achieving both your personal goals and business goals. Your co-mentor can refer to it when you're using your most common excuses to avoid missed deadlines or behavior that is getting in your way.
3. Never Cancel Your Scheduled Meetings
This is great advice—and it can be the toughest to follow.
If you create a scheduled meeting or a specific accountability appointment, stick to it. If that means that you have to push other things aside, do it. If it means that you have to shorten the meeting to only five minutes, do it.
If you reschedule the meeting once, it will only increase the chances that you reschedule, push off, or disregard your future accountability meetings. However you choose to schedule your check-ins with your accountability partner—whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly—stick to them.
Be realistic, too. When starting a co-mentorship relationship, you'll both be running on excitement and motivation. However, that motivation will diminish somewhat. Sorry, but it's true! While you both might agree that you want to meet up weekly on Friday afternoons, in person, life will try to get in the way.
Find the easiest way to connect, in a time slot that is unlikely to be interrupted. Consider also whether your meeting needs to be in-person. Perhaps you conduct most of your check-ins via Zoom, Skype, or video chat. A 10-minute video call is much tougher to justify canceling than a reservation at your favorite wine bar.
Schedule and keep your meetings. This is important!
4. Create Milestones of All Sizes
One of the most common pitfalls of failed goals is the size of the goal.
Break it down into pieces and celebrate each milestone. When starting your co-mentorship, have your first goal in mind, but then break it down into manageable pieces or smaller SMART goals. For example, if your big goal is to get a new job, you can break it into these "weekly" pieces:
- Week One: Rewrite resume
- Week Two: Reach out to 5-10 recruiters and hiring managers
- Week Three: Add 1-2 new pieces (e.g., writing, graphic design, past work) to your portfolio or LinkedIn
- Week Four: Schedule 1-3 informational interviews
The job search can take a long time and it can be rather disheartening as a giant goal. By breaking it into smaller pieces, you gift yourself the ability to watch your progress, implement new changes, and keep working without the defeating "nothing is happening!" perspective.
Your co-mentor can also help you to find different perspectives or avenues that you may not have thought to try. Break down your goal to perfect the steps you take to actually achieve it. It might take an unexpected route.
5. Leave Space for Personal Check-Ins, Too
This is advice that often applies to weekly 1:1 meetings in a work environment. Goals are great. Professional success is awesome. However, leave some room to talk about the human aspects of your life.
Don't use your co-mentoring sessions to complain about your spouse or nitpick your boss, but provide some context as to what's happening in your personal life too.
If your accountability or co-mentor is not someone you know too well, you can use prompts to share what's happening without getting too personal.
Here are a few examples:
My workload since the last meeting has been...
My personal headspace since our last check-in has been...
Something we spoke about that really worked for me was...
Something we spoke about that I can use more help with is...
A new idea I've had since our last meeting is...
Something fun I tried since our last meeting is...
My personal headspace since our last check-in has been...
Something we spoke about that really worked for me was...
Something we spoke about that I can use more help with is...
A new idea I've had since our last meeting is...
Something fun I tried since our last meeting is...
What to Avoid in an Accountability Relationship
Last, but not least, let's identify some red flags in a co-mentorship before we choose our person.
- Someone who is flakey
- Someone who easily gives into peer pressure or excuses
- Someone who is negative and judgmental
- Someone without empathy
- Someone who only takes
First of all, be aware of what you need. Identify the gaps in your own personality—and how someone might hold you accountable. For example, if you're looking to hit a new goal in terms of customer acquisition, find someone who has done something similar.
If you need someone who is strict and can keep you to a schedule with daily check-ins, do that. If you need someone with a gentler push, make sure to prioritize that quality when looking for a co-mentor.
If you're feeling lost and you'd like to work alongside someone who feels equally lost, then prioritize that and work together to identify your paths, whether or not they converge at some point.
The better you know yourself and what you need, the more successful your accountability relationship will be.
