How to Stay Accountable to Your Goals with an Accountability Partner

Have you ever paid your business associate $500 because you slept in?

Well I have, and here’s why…

It’s a story that dates back to when I met with a life coach at a charity dinner, and I asked him for some advice.

You see, at the time, I knew that I could grow my business if I could just wake up early enough to work about an hour before I headed out to work everyday.

However my problem was I couldn’t get up.

The life coach told me asked me if I was motivated by pain or pleasure.

I admitted it was pain that motivated me.

Then he gave me a method to get me to wake up early, not matter how tired I was…and it worked.

It’s a method that you can do to get motivated to do anything.

Step 1: Are you motivated by Pain or Pleasure?

There are a few steps to the method.

The first step is to find out what motivates you: pain or pleasure?

If you are motivated by pain, then you will do something to avoid pain.

For example, I don’t drink alcohol because I don’t like the lethargy that I feel the next day. I also don’t like the fact that its a poison that hurts my liver.

Or another example, I worked a job and avoided overtime because I wanted to avoid the pain of being scolded by my supervisor.

Someone motivated by pleasure would be like a sales person who will be more productive if they get a more money for selling more.

Maybe you will get your work done efficiently and quickly because you can get home earlier and have the pleasure of spending time with your family.

So, figure out for yourself, what motivates you more, pain or pleasure?

Find an Accountability Partner

When I met the life coach who taught me this method, I was a part of a Network Marketing company at one of our conventions.

So when I sat down for one of the sessions, they asked us to talk to the person next to us and share our goals.

I told him that I wanted to find an accountability partner, and he volunteered to be mine.

I happened to know him, as we had met at previous conventions, however, I had never worked with him before.

It turned out that he ended up being a really good accountability partner.

You may or may not be in a company where mutual interests will steer you towards your accountability partner.

For you it could be a friend or a family member.

Find someone who can help you stay accountable to your goals.

Agree on Your Goal and Choose Your Pain/Pleasure

After you find your accountability partner, let them know what your goal is and how you want to be punished/rewarded for it.

In my case, my goal was to wake up early enough so that I could work on my business for 1 hour in the mornings before I went to work.

So we decided that I would text him when I woke up, and decided I had to text him by 5:45am.

We also decided that my pain would be to pay $500.

That was large enough that I would be extremely motivated not to lose the money.

I gave him 2 checks, each payable for $500. If I didn’t wake up and text him by the appropriate time, he could go ahead and cash one of the checks.

This was what I did.

However, it doesn’t have to be money.

It could be anything that motivates you.

An example of a pleasure motivation would be giving your accountability partner something that you want. Maybe giving him 2 cashier’s checks, and when you make a certain goal, he will mail you the check as a reward.

Stay Accountable and Be in Integrity

The first time I slept in and didn’t check in by text, my accountability partner gave me a break, and didn’t cash the check.

However, the 2nd time I did, he cashed it.

Even though it did hurt to pay out $500, and I was upset with myself for sleeping in (I shut my phone off and forgot to turn it back on when I went to bed), I was ok with paying the money because I had made this accountability pact and I was going to stand by it.

Because of it, I was able to grow a business part time even though I worked a full time job and I was a mother and wife.

Conclusion

If you want to get motivated towards a goal, an accountability partner can help a lot.

It’s especially hard to stay motivated if you are doing a goal on your own, such as building your own business or training for an ironman.

Using an accountability partner is a way to keep you motivated and make sure you do what you want to do.

Let me know about your thoughts in the comments below!

P.S.

I want to introduce myself and let you know a little bit more about me.

I used to have over $30,000+ in debt back in 2010, and a negative Net Worth.

I paid it all off and became completely debt free in April of 2016, and quit my job in December 2016 to be a full time Mom and Wife.

At the time our family was making about $500/month in passive income from investments we had been growing over the years.

In 2017 we bought our first condo together in Waikiki, and went on 5 weeks of vacation, including my first cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico.

At the end of 2017, our passive income is about $600/month and still growing.

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