We share wishes and plans in our conversations and our timelines. Without accountability to follow-through, life happens; our best intentions rarely do!
Lack of follow-through results from weakness of our will, not a failure of intent (or even conviction). Our human nature dreams bigger than our individual will can achieve alone.
Enlisting our community to hold us accountable to our goals represents one key support structure that elevates achievement.
If we want to introduce more accountability into our life, here are a few quick steps that can elevate our rate of achievement.
Set Your Goals/Outcomes
For most of us, goals or intentions are not the problem. In the past, it was a friend, neighbor, family member, acquaintance, or us sharing intended outcomes.
In our social media-driven culture, there is simply too much noise for most of us to remember (let alone follow through) on everything we see and share. Because of the blazing-fast scroll in our timelines, accountability and following through are often at an all-time low.
It is through the following steps that we can introduce more accountability into our work and life.
Set Milestones To Track Follow Through
To introduce accountability, we have to identify points of measure. Few goals are achieved immediately so it works best to break the achievement into shorter time intervals in which we track progress.
- Identify yearly goals or objectives that you measure quarterly or monthly.
- List quarterly or monthly goals for measuring on a weekly schedule.
- Set weekly objectives which you can track and report on a daily basis.
Create recurring calendar events or alarms on your smartphone. These act as reminders to ensure consistent auditing and measuring of progress toward the goal.
All of this leads to the most important key to accountability and follow-through…
Report Status For Accountability
This empowers others to help hold us accountable for our progress. For each of the selected milestones, share victories and losses toward the goal.
Whether a physical, financial, or purely social (aka – Pride) accountability, most of us need help to audit (and often correct) what we are doing.
- For someone working toward an athletic achievement, identify interim measurements that lead to greater skill and/or performance.
- For smokers trying to quit, set a reward (or penalty) based on the number of cigarettes smoked during the period.
- In a weight-loss scenario, a weekly photo on Facebook or Instagram of the scale is a strong motivator.
Whatever the goal, add points of measure and results sharing because these are the biggest sources of accountability.
If you need help setting goals, use these resources:
Editor’s Note:
Check out these other posts for more information on Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Content Development.
