Got goals? Hold yourself accountable
I’m having a little accountability issue. As in, I have none. I have a lot of goals, not just in my career, but also in my personal life, my finances and my health. As I’ve struggled to regain my footing after falling in love, I’ve come to find my real issue is now that I simply lack the motivation to accomplish on a day-to-day basis, and that daily action is critical to the fulfillment of larger goals.I know one thing to be true when it comes to setting goals and achieving them: the most surefire method is to chip away at it one step at a time. Daily action is necessary. If you want to train to run a marathon, you’ve got to actually put your shoes on and go for a run. If you want to pay off your credit cards, you cannot charge anything to them today. I prefer to live one day at a time this way. When I start to use the word “tomorrow,” I get myself into a world of trouble. I won’t accomplish much with “I’ll run tomorrow” or “I’ll stop using my credit card tomorrow.” This method of goal procrastination will leave you stranded. You just need to start.
Enter accountability. Now that you’ve decided to go through with the daily action method you could use a little reinforcement. I used to get this through Guy I Was Seeing. Though we’re still friends, I don’t get to talk to him as much as I used to. Read more about what an accountability partner can do for you here.
What happens if you can’t find an accountability partner or group? Or if you’re the only one who ever does anything in said partnership/group? I’m not sure, but I’m taking a stab with my blog. Yep, you guys are now my accountability partners. I find it hard to make excuses to you all… mostly because my lame excuses look really bad in print. That, and I’ve sworn to be as honest and as transparent as possible.
I know I won’t meet all of my goals 100 percent of the time, but the nice thing about accountability partners is not the negative pressure – it’s the positive pressure. It’s reassuring to think you guys know what my goals are, what I’m doing to get there, and that you get to see the results when I do what I say and when I don’t. It might be corny and a little arrogant, but for some reason I have the feeling that you guys have my back.
All mushiness aside, my monthly accountability posts will basically have a “where I’m at” theme. I’ll review my goals, what I’ve done, what I haven’t done and what I plan to do. The areas in which I will be accountable are broad: physical (exercise, health, diet), relationships (family, significant other, friends), career (job, entrepreneurship), financial (credit, savings), spirituality (meditation, sobriety), general (emotion, mood, life goals).
I realize that not everyone wants to read about me, me, me, but my hope is that my transparency in these things will allow people to see what really works… and what really doesn’t. I’ll be posting the first one tomorrow.
How do you stay accountable? How do you reach your goals, little and big?
Labels: accountability, budgeting, career, goal-setting, health, life, organizational, personal finance, productivity, stress, wellness
posted by Holly Hoffman at
9:50 PM
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5 Comments:
Well, Lance and I partner the blog, so that's how I reach those goals...I have a really supportive friend whose interested in entrepreneurship as well, so that helps. It will be interesting transitioning from the extremely supportive environment at my old university and the "real world" (I start Monday, woot!) job that I just got, so we'll see how that goes. I do anticipate being much more social and fiscally responsible as a result of an actual paycheck ;-)
Maybe you could round up a little community of bloggers and we could all do a blog like this once a month?
@honey: Great idea! I'd thought about this, but now that you've suggested it (and reassured me that I'm not the hugest dork on the face of the earth for thinking this could be cool), I'll make an open call for other bloggers to join in. Thanks!
I'm in. Even with the people around me, it's nice to have something else keeping me accountable.
Loving the focus on being accountable, but that means being accountable and responsible for all of your decisions, which can include not doing something if that serves you well (i.e. taking a little down time).
Yes, being accountable is vital, but don't get hung up on having goals - they don't work by themselves.
Much better to be plugged into something that matters and enagaging with what's important - then it's easier to do something every day without the 'struggle' that goals bring with them.
Steve
@norcross: Right on! Let me know when you start posting - I want to link to you and offer you some encouragement too!
@steve errey: I agree. Goals shouldn't be an end in themselves. Our goals ought to be action items in our larger frame of the kind of people we want to be and the lives we want to lead.
Without striving to be the best versions of ourselves, many of us would be content to not change, to not grow or motivate. We don't have to be the best, but we should always want to be better, in my opinion. Better friends, better workers, better lovers, better parents, better humans. A goal can be a small stepping stone in that progress.
Certainly, not doing is still an action. One I intend to embrace often. ;)
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