Transform Your Success with Powerful Accountability Partners

Introduction

Have you ever been scrolling on instagram and you were just wishing someone would stop your right now? Or, after skipping the gym you wish someone forced you to go? If you have ever felt anything like the two scenarios, then an accountability partner is perfect for you. Accountability partners are what they sound like, people who keep you accountable

Accountability partners are perfect for fostering motivation and consistency. If you find the right partner, then they can also help push you forward on your goals. Accountability partners, although difficult to get for some people, is probably the best way to keep track of your goals. There’s psychological reasons and anecdotal reasons, let’s just get into it.

The Psychology Behind Accountability: Why It Works

The benefits of accountability partners is rooted in psychology. When you see these reasons, it’ll click in your mind and you’ll see why accountability partners are a massive benefit.

First of all, there’s the obvious social pressure that comes with an accountability partner. You’re gonna be accountable to someone else, and you’re not going to want to fall behind.

This obvious social pressure helps reduce procrastination and laziness since in your mind, you’ll think “Man, I can’t let my boy down like this, I gotta get to work”

Furthermore, accountability partners boost motivation and encourage you. For example, your partner might push you in the gym by making you do heavier weights.

This motivation and encouragement is probably the most important thing about accountability partners. You’ll be motivated to not disappoint your partner, pushing you even harder.

Accountability Partners Boost Commitment

Now, here’s what works for me the most about accountability partners. Lets say you tell your partner “I’m going to the gym today”. Now, I feel inclined to go to the gym because I don’t want to lie to my friend.

Basically, now that I told him my goals, I have to commit or else I’m lying to a friend of mine, and that’s not cool. This pressure of refusing to lie to your friend can be powerful especially if you’re tight with your accountability partner.

Lastly, having an accountability partner will help create positive reinforcements. Accountability partners help you feel good about yourself. For example, if your partner congratulates you every time you hit the gym, you’ll get the habit trigger to hit the gym now. Here’s my habit trigger blog if you haven’t read it, it goes more in depth into habit triggers.

In general, habit triggers help associate certain behaviors with positive outcomes, so being congratulate by your bro is a positive outcome that can be linked to going to the gym.

Finding the Right Accountability Partner for Your Goals

An important part to finding your right accountability partner is understanding your own goals. If you don’t understand what you want, you can’t find the right partner. The most important part of finding an accountability partner is both of you being aligned on similar goals. For example, if your goal is to hit the gym 5 times a week, finding a partner who doesn’t go to the gym doesn’t make sense

Another important factor to keep in mind is trust and honesty. Your accountability partners need to be trustworthy and honest to you. If your partner isn’t giving you honest feedback, what’s the point?

When picking your partner, find someone you know will call you out when you’re being lazy. Don’t go down the easy route and be scared of feedback, remember, you only grow from your failures and from feedback.

Accountability Partners Need to be Compatible

Furthermore, you need to be compatible with your partner. You guys should have similar schedules, communication styles, and so forth. You should also like your accountability partner, it’s easy to fall into the trap of being partners with a guy you don’t care about just because he’s the only partner you can find.

If you don’t care about your partner then you basically have no one to motivate you. Overall compatibility is extremely important to having a healthy relationship with your partner. (sounds like i’m talking about a romantic relationship lol)

In addition to compatibility, you should look for accountability partners in the people around you. They could be professors, family members, friends, you name it. It doesn’t matter as much who they are, it matter mores that you are able to talk to them every day.

You can’t pick a guy who you barely talk to, they need to be close enough with you that you could talk to them every day.

Setting up Effective Check-ins and Progress Reviews

A lot of this section is going to be up to you. Every person, every situation, every scenario is different. However, I’ll give some general tips on the best way to set up effective check-ins with your accountability partner.

The frequency, in my opinion, should be daily/every day for maximum affect. Whether it’s a 5 minute chat, or a one hour call, as long as you talk to them every day you’ll benefit immensely. I know not everyone can talk every day, so just try to do it as often as you can.

What your Check-ins should be About

You should both establish clear goals in the beginning. Accountability partners are meant to help you and the partner achieve your respective goals. Due to this, you guys should know each others goal and discuss them each time you chat.

For example, your partner could ask “Have you hit the gym today”? if your goal is to go to the gym 5 times a day. You can use apps or spreadsheets to track your goals together. For example, you can set up a table in Notion with your respective goals to track them together

It doesn’t matter what software you use, as long as you can track milestones and you both have access, it doesn’t matter at all. In your usual check-ins, you should give feedback to each other. Feedback isn’t insulting the other partner, or making fun of them. Feedback is trying to help point out a problem so that your partner can solve it

You should also take feedback, don’t be scared or offended from it. If you can’t grow from your feedback, then you can’t grow at all.

How to Stay Accountable When You’re Working Solo with no Accountability Partners

Now, like I said in the beginning, most people can’t/don’t have accountability partners they can get. Therefore, a lot of people need to stay self-accountable. This section is for the people who can’t get a partner, however, if you can get one, I strongly recommend you do so

The best self accountability method is to become your own partner. Use apps like Todoist or Trello in order to create to-do lists and keep track of your own work. You can set up consequences if you don’t achieve certain goals to yourself. For example, if I don’t finish my homework right now, I’m not allowed to watch Netflix.

Using consequences to keep yourself accountable can also be used in the inverse. Create rewards when you do actions, like if you do finish your homework, you can watch Netflix.

Habit Tracking and Commitment Bias with no Accountability Partners

If you’re trying to be an influencer, you can share your goals on social media or in a discord server to stay accountable. Like the commitment bias we talked about earlier, you won’t want to be seen as a liar to 100s or even 1000s of people.

The final method I would use for self accountability is to have a habit tracker, or use habit tracking apps like Habitica. Habit trackers, in my opinion, is the most effect accountability partner you can have on your own. They show you when you did your habits, and when you slacked off, so if you’re not using a habit tracker you’re missing out.

Conclusion

Accountability partners are one of the best ways you can improve your productivity. By allowing you to stay motivated throughout, you constantly have a reason to work hard. Having regular check-ins with your partner helps build stronger bonds and relationships with your partner.

Finding the right partner/self accountability method depends on the person. Therefore, make sure to do your research on your personal preferences. Both methods can work, however, it all depends on the person doing them.

If you don’t have an accountability partner, leave a comment below and maybe someone else might see your comment and reach out. Other then that, have a great day and remember

Nothing changes if nothing changes