Accountability helps us build relationships, meet goals, and develop personally and professionally. When you’re on a team, you hold those around you accountable for their ends of the projects, and your company or clients often hold you accountable for providing excellent service and products.
However, too often, professionals and entrepreneurs struggle to hold themselves or those closest to them accountable. For whatever reason, you can easily hold your employees to the standard which you expect, but will sometimes find yourself letting yourself off the hook where you shouldn’t.
This is why it helps to have an accountability partner in your life to help you achieve your goals. This person can be someone who works closely with you on a project, could be a close friend who you simply share updates on a project with, or could be someone you hire, like a business coach.
When looking for someone to act as your accountability partner, look for someone who you respect, who you would never want to disappoint, and who has time to help you. Most importantly, you need to look for someone who knows you, who understands the struggles you face in getting work done.
Your accountability partner also needs to know the other priorities in your life – perhaps if you always spend Sunday unplugged with your family, your accountability partner needs to know that you won’t make any moves toward your goal on Sunday. Setting these boundaries is fine, but part of accountability is knowing that you have unplugged time coming up, and getting work out of the way in advance so you don’t shirk responsibilities.
As a major factor in your success, accountability is crucial. As one of BNI’s Core Values, we see our members hold each other accountable each week – chapter attendance, following up on referrals, and bringing visitors to chapter meetings, among others, are elements which our members know they can count on others in their chapter to help motivate and encourage them to do.
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