Find an Accountability Partner

Do you have problems completing tasks? Have you been having trouble sticking to your budget? Have you set goals before and never even gotten started? Want a way to fix these problems? Does this sound like a cheesy infomercial so far? Hopefully you said YES to the last one! If you haven’t ever had the problems above then you are probably very driven, but not everyone can say the same thing. If you fall into the latter group keep reading.

Deciding you actually want to complete whatever it is that you have been putting off is the first step, but now that you’ve done that what is next? Get an accountability partner! What is an accountability partner? They are someone (or something) that will help to keep you accountable for reaching your goals, completing your tasks, sticking to your budget or anything else you want to do. The idea is by telling someone what you want to accomplish you will feel like you owe it to that person (in addition to just yourself) to finish the job. When you do, you get to tell them about it and in addition to the great feeling of accomplishing your task you also get the chance to share that feeling with someone else! I don’t know about you, but one of the things I hate the most is letting someone down. By having someone else that is interested in you completing your goal I would also feel like I let them down if I didn’t finish it.

So, now that you know about what an accountability partner is you may be asking “How can I find one?”. Chances are they could be sitting in the same room as you right now. A good accountability partner will be someone who you interact with often. It also helps if they are supportive of what they will be holding you accountable for and you are comfortable talking to them about the goal you are trying to reach.

So who could this person be? Here are some ideas:

• Your best friend
• Your spouse, significant other, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.
• Your parents
• Your kids
• Your online blog community (thanks guys!)

Be careful who you pick and which of your goals you ask them to help you with. It probably wouldn’t be a great idea to have your coworker or boss be your accountability partner if you really want to find a new job or any other sensitive information such as a budget that could reveal how much you make.

Think you have an idea for who you would like to be your accountability partner? Great, go talk to them as soon as you can. Ask if they would mind helping you with something and explain to them that you would like an accountability partner for whatever goal you are trying to accomplish. If they agree to help you, figure out how often you should update them or how often they should ask  you for an update. The only thing left now is to go get started. What are you waiting for?

I’d like to thank you all in advance for being one of my accountability partners. I plan on posting updates on my goals often on this blog. Sometimes it may not be weekly but I will keep you all up to date! Will you help me out by being one of my accountability partners? I hope so!

Do you have an accountability partner? If so, how has it worked out for you? Let me know in the comments!