How to Hold Yourself Accountable
Have you ever made plans, set goals and then lost the motivation to continue? Have you ever quit what you started? What if there were a way to hold yourself accountable and stick to what you start? Keep reading, and I’ll show you how to hold yourself accountable.
1. Stop holding yourself accountable to minor things. Minor depends on where you are in life and what your goals are. For example, if you’re a single, empty nester, maybe you don’t have to clean the house every weekend? Or if you’re a busy husband and father who also works full time, maybe you could pay someone to cut the grass so that you can relax on Saturday afternoons? Consider the things that you think you should be doing. Could you do less or delegate the task to someone else?
2. Set rewards. If you want to hold yourself accountable to doing a certain activity, set a reward. For instance, if you want to get up an hour early five days a week and work on the book you’re writing, promise yourself a reward at the end of every week. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Just something fun that you will give yourself if you do what you said you were going to do.
3. Establish punishments. Let’s go back to the example of writing a book. So if you don’t get up early for five days to write, maybe you could punish yourself by not having dessert for a week or not watching Netflix for a week. You know what will motivate you to stay on track, so consider a punishment that you don’t want to impose on yourself.
4. Set up visual reminders. You can use a wall calendar, a planner or a simple calendar that you print from Word. You will need two Sharpies or ink pens in different colors. Use green or a color that you like to write on the calendar when you did what you said you would do, and use red or a color that you don’t like to write down when you didn’t do what you said you would do. So if you were holding yourself accountable to get up and write your book, you might have entries in green for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday because you got up and wrote, and maybe you would have entries in red for Thursday and Friday because you decided to sleep in instead of getting up to write. The key to this system is to make an entry every day in the appropriate color and leave the calendar in a place where you have to see it. At the end of the month, look at the calendar and marvel at all the days you did what you intended to do. On the other hand, if you didn’t do so well, decide that you will improve your performance the next month. Find a spot to post each monthly calendar so that you are visually holding yourself accountable.
5. Give yourself credit for good effort. So returning to the example of writing a book. Let’s say you got up an hour early for three days, but you only got up 45 minutes early for two days. Give yourself credit for the two days that you didn’t get up as early as you wanted to. You still got up and you still made progress. This doesn’t mean that you let yourself off the hook when you don’t do what you’re supposed to do. It means that you don’t require perfect performance from yourself.
6. As you’re getting dressed each morning, ask yourself, “What is the best use of my time and resources today?” Consider that statement throughout the day and govern yourself accordingly.
7. Play the movie. Imagine that your day, month or year is a movie. Think of how it will end based on how you spend your time. If you like the ending, continue what you’re doing. If you don’t like the ending, change your behavior.
So, how will you hold yourself accountable? Will you set up rewards, impose punishments or something else? Do you like the way the movie ends?
