I have said to myself: 2020 is going to be
your year. Every January most us make a commitment to ourselves to be the
healthiest, happiest, and best us we can be this year! Sounds like a something
a lot of us have said, doesn’t it? By time May rolls around many of fall of the
best self-wagon, I know I sure did. Over years I have learned that it all comes
down to accountability and have committed to start and learn to hold myself
accountable to reach my goals and just because life got busy, or because
self-doubt creeps in that I don’t quit. In March I set off to do some research,
use April to see what would work (and what totally was one of those tips that
didn’t do sh*t all for me) and landed on these things that have made a world of
difference.
Here are some ways to how to hold yourself
accountable:
Write it down and display it.
This is one common thing that everyone will
tell you when they talk about accountability. Write your goals down, and I mean
physically write down, not type on your phone/computer. There is something
powerful having your goal written out, it has even more power when you have it
somewhere where it serves as a reminder. I wrote my goals on a legal size of
paper and stuck in on my closet door. Every morning I get dressed I see it.
Vision boards, sticky notes on mirrors, word boards - whichever way you want to
do it but have your goals be visible because there is no point of setting a
goal you wont revisit, see or do anything about.
Make a detailed plan.
Goal without a plan is just a wish. It's amazing you want to be the best and most awesome you ever but unless you have
some magical power (if you do, please call me!) to will your goals and achieve
them you are gonna need a plan. And at that, not any plan, a well thought out
detailed plan. If you don't know how to achieve your goal, read, research,
listen to podcast till you can come up with a plan. For each of my goals I made
a plan, typed it up on word, and than set follow up on each thing in that plan.
Plan for your goals and think of them like
you’re scheduling an appointment or an important meeting.
This might be the most important
appointment and one you want to keep. Weather is getting yourself to the gym,
cooking dinners vs. going out, or whatever it might be, schedule an appointment
with yourself. We keep so many appointments, weather for work or doctors’
appointments, so why not approach something as important and you and your goals
the same. One of my 2019 to get my butt back in shape – so I book appointments
on my calendar every day, set reminders twice for each of them. Yes, I'm human
and I ignore some of those but more often than not, I work out. Because I set
those as reoccurring appointments, I actually make other appointments around
it. If you are not gonna put your goals first, believe me no one else will.
Reward yourself for reaching small goals.
For every goal you set – set sub goals
within that goal. A lot of goals we set for ourselves are a long game, the
results aren’t instant, they take time and it's hard to keep motivated knowing
those things. By setting smaller goals within your big, ultimate end goal you
are more likely to keep at it and keep going. I wanted to grow my Instagram, my
goal was to hit 50K followers by year end but instead getting discouraged when
things didn’t work (or because Instagram algorithm is killing me) I set a goal
within that that would help me reach my year end goal. I started out by growing
my following by 1% a month. I created a spreadsheet, and assigned first couple
months ideas of how I was going to achieve that. Each 15th of the month I set
an appointment with myself and review what work what didn’t – and celebrate
things that went well.
How do you stay accountable?
