One key to successfully starting your own business is working on an idea, developing a new habit, or a more significant project is making consistent, daily progress towards your goals. Especially if you do not have your team and limited time and money resources, you need to be ultra-focused and ideally make small steps forward every day.
What has helped us for many years now are Objectives and Key Results for the direction and challenging but achievable goals, and weekly accountability partner meetings for the permanent progress part.
There are different types of accountability partnerships that you can go into. Here are some qualities you should look for when picking your Accountability partner.
Accountability groups try to help and support each other to get better in whatever we want. Accountability is about commitment, and to stay accountable towards the own goals, the weekly meeting is an essential part of it. There is no half-ass way to attend it.
Here is an Accountability Partner Checklist and some Rules if you want to set up your accountability partnership group
- Try to make space in your schedule every week. Do not skip the meeting if you feel that you did not make the progress you wanted to do. Treat the meeting as you would a doctor's appointment or a business meeting.
- Keep the meetings fun, positive, non-judgmental, encouraging, give honest feedback and keep it brief.
- Agree on the meeting times in advance, and give the member time to confirm. If it is impossible to attend the meeting, try to find another time/date, or you skip a week. That's also fine. Usually, it helps if you make a fixed weekly appointment and only change it if needed.
- If you use Objectives and Key Results or any other tracking system, update your progress before the meeting.
- Something can come between you and the meeting last minute (A lousy internet connection, something urgent.) If this occurs, write a short message to the organizer, and it is fine as well.
- If you can not attend the meeting, talk to your partner or a friend about your progress.
- Respect the time of others and be on time. Keep in mind everybody is reserving time for the Accountability Partner Meeting.
Many meetings in, especially bigger companies, are often a big waste of time. In many cases, an email would be sufficient instead of 10+ people sitting together without having a clear outcome in mind. When you meet with your accountability buddy, try to keep it short and with a specific predefined result.
If you are looking for a professional accountability partner, check out our services here.
