Accountability

So what if you can’t find an accountability partner? There has to be some other ways to keep yourself accountable. Well there are, but they’re not as easy as having someone act as your coach and motivator.

First, you could write in your journal/calendar/whiteboard what you intend to do. Write down that you are going to follow through and complete your tasks. This is easy to avoid when you don’t really have a lot of willpower though. You can always erase or scribble stuff out. I found myself making plans to get up early at 6am on paper many times, but it didn’t always work the greatest.

Next, you could make your commitment public. You could post on social media or even on this site what you intend to do. This has been shown to work for many people. A specific strategy that people use is that they commit to posting a body composition picture every three months on social media. This keeps them on track because they do not want to look bad and don’t want people to see that they are not making progress.

Another thing you can do is to make a promise to yourself, but depending on what type of person you are, that could be easy to break. You would need to be thoroughly sold on your commitment in order for a personal promise to be enough.

It would also help to reward or punish yourself for successes or failures. This is pretty common knowledge when it comes to habit forming or breaking though and learning in general. It has worked for some people though. I know someone who quit smoking because they calculated how much money it was costing them and figured if they quit they could afford payments for a Harley. They no longer smoke and they ride that Harley everywhere.

Beyond these ideas what you need to do to be able to follow through and hold yourself accountable is just to find enough inspiration. Once you feel inspired or totally sold on an idea or change then you have the power to make the necessary change in your life. So whatever you need to get yourself sold on the idea and become inspired, that is what you need to do. Reading, watching inspirational films or videos, or even just taking a nature hike are all different ways to find inspiration.

All of these are great ways to hold yourself accountable and work best when used together. Although, the best thing is to have an accountability partner to help you get back on track when you fall.