7 Keys To Maximizing Accountability Effectiveness
Key Ideas in this Article
7 ways to maximize this tool to accelerate your wealth growth.
Design A Plan: This is the critical first step because your actions should always be grounded in an overall plan to produce the intended result. It creates the context for everything that follows. It's the required starting point.
Convert Your Plan Into Action Steps: A plan is just a dream until it's converted into specific action steps that you can be accountable for achieving. For example, the music instructor gives specific songs to learn that teach specific musical skills. This is essential because goals and plans are just ideas.
Create A Way To Measure Results: You can only improve that which you can measure. This is critical. Your daily actions must result in a clear, unambiguous measurement criteria. When your progress is measured, then performance improves.
Schedule Regular Accountability: Once you have a goal, have created a strategy to achieve that goal, and you've converted that strategy into daily actions steps with clear measurement criteria, the next step is to set a regular schedule with your accountability partner where you agree to provide a status report that reveals your progress. Review your goals each session. Celebrate the wins and uncover the causes of failure so they don't repeat. This must occur regularly (weekly or bi-weekly) to ensure consistent progress. There can't be a lapse or there's no accountability.
Invoke the Competitive Spirit: Can you beat your goal? Can you outperform expectations? Sometimes it's fun to let your competitive juices flow and see what's possible. One fun strategy is to choose an accountability partner that shares the same goal so that you can compete with each other and super-charge results.
Build A Support System To Pull You Forward: Setbacks are inevitable. Everybody experiences them. The difference is successful people get back on their feet faster and don't waste time or energy by wallowing in the problem. Life is hard, and it's also beautiful. Acknowledge your loss, control the damage, and refocus yourself and start again. The key is to create a support system that literally pulls you forward. Coaching, masterminds, professional organizations, and accountability partners are all excellent examples of support systems that help you refocus when the going gets rough.
Be Honest: Accountability only works when combined with integrity. If you lie about your results then you only deceive yourself. If your accountability partner doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to call you to the carpet when appropriate, then it won't work. The process will lack backbone. You don't need a cheerleader. You need someone that can speak the truth when necessary to get you back on track. If your accountability partner accepts excuses, then s/he really isn't holding you accountable at all.