The Power Of Accountability | Jack Canfield

How would you like to learn a success strategy that will more than double your chances of achieving your goals? It's one of the most valuable tools we teach in our high end mastermind groups and I'm talking about the power of accountability. And today I'm going to teach you a simple but powerful practice and how to put it to work in your life so that you more easily and quickly achieve the goals you've set for yourself this year. One of the challenges of people in my position being the head of a company is we don't have a boss, and many of you watching are in that same situation. You're either a solo entrepreneur or you're the head of your own organization. However big or small it might be. And even if you work for someone else, this technique will increase both the ease and speed of your getting things done and will expand the size of your results. Now the technique is called Working with an Accountability Partner. You know, even though I have a staff of 12 people, as an author and a designer of trainings and coaching programs, a lot of my work is done alone and it's very easy to slip into focusing on the things that are easy to do but don't have that much long term value rather than to focus on the often more difficult, uncomfortable or challenging tasks that have more long term value. And since so much of my work requires me to do research on the Internet, it's very easy to get distracted reading irrelevant Facebook posts, watching YouTube videos, checking out the latest releases on iTunes, reading the CNN newsfeed and other not so productive behaviors. However, once I got an accountability partner and started having daily accountability calls five days a week, my productivity soared. And here's how it works. Once you have determined what your goals are for the year, you then have to determine what specific action steps are going to need to be taken to achieve those goals. Here are a few examples from some of our clients in a recent meeting of one of our high end mastermind groups. Hire and train an executive assistant Locate and hire someone to manage my social media, create a marketing campaign to attract more clients for my diesel and hydraulic maintenance business, develop and start a podcast, design, produce and market my online training course, delegate my administrative and human relations functions to other people in my company and so I can focus on recruiting and servicing more high value clients, design and build out my website, locate and purchase a new house, complete a screenplay for a pilot for the new television series I'm working on and create a brochure for my new corporate consulting work. Now each of the things I just mentioned have a lot of individual action steps that have to be taken to complete them. And this is where the rule of five comes into play. The rule of five is where you commit to take five action steps every day to achieve your stated goal. And to help make sure you actually do that, you enlist the support of an accountability partner. And this is the person that you'll talk to once a day for about five minutes every day for at least five days a week. And the purpose for you and your accountability partner is to hold each other accountable for completing those actions, meeting your deadlines, accomplishing your goals, and as a result, making real progress toward creating the life that you want. Now, working with an accountability partner is so powerful for a couple of reasons. The first is that when you make your goals public by sharing them with another person, it makes those goals more believable and real, and it greatly increases your motivation to achieve them. In fact, the American Society of Training and Development did a study on accountability which showed that if you verbalize your commitment to another person and make a specific appointment to check in with the other person and report on your progress, you increase your chance of success by 95%. Now, that's huge. Now, in another study conducted by Gail Matthews at Dominican University in San Rafael, California, she found that having to make regular progress reports to an accountability partner increased your rate of goal achievement by as much as 26%. Now, you see, it's a simple thing to do, but as you can see, the results are very powerful. As I already stated, this is especially true for solo entrepreneurs who typically don't have a team working with them, as well as for anyone who doesn't have colleagues or friends or family members that are supporting their goals. Having an accountability partner who stands in witness to your goals and your commitments and who requires you to make regular reports on your progress can give you the support you need for getting things done, even in the face of other people's skepticism or negativity. So how do you find an accountability partner and set up an effective accountability practice together? My first recommendation would be to choose someone who isn't a close personal friend or family member, as it can often be very difficult for them to remain neutral with someone they have a personal history with. Being accountability partners with your spouse can sometimes evolve into something that feels a lot more like judgment and nagging than simply holding each other accountable. Now, it's not impossible, but I also find that business partners rarely work well as an accountability partner either. It can work, but it's challenging. So it's best to pick someone more neutral and that is not as emotionally invested in your success or failure as your spouse or your business partner is. You also want to choose someone who's also a highly motivated person and who also sets goals and is striving to achieve them. And you want someone who's positive, support, supportive and encouraging. You definitely want to avoid anyone who tends to be negative or pessimistic all the time. Now. At the same time, you want someone who's strong, has good boundaries, and is not afraid of telling you the truth. Someone who will not let you get away with lame excuses for why you didn't do what you said you were going to do. And finally, be sure to choose someone who you know to be responsible and reliable. It's not going to work if the other person is always flaking out on you and not showing up for calls. Now, once you've identified someone who you think would be suitable for an accountability partner, simply call or email them. Explain what you're doing. Tell them what an accountability partner is and what they do for each other and how the process works, and simply ask them if they'd be interested in committing to being an accountability partner with you. And once you have someone that agrees, start by having a short conversation in which you both share what your goals for the year are and your goals for the next month are, and then set up a mutually agreeable time to talk to each other every day. Now, ideally, this should be at the same time every day. What I found is that early morning works best for most people, but anytime will work if it fits in better with your schedule and your accountability partner schedule. I find that the best way to check in with your partner is over the phone or by using a video app like Skype or Zoom. A live call works a lot better than just sending a text or an email. There's something much more real about a face to face or over the phone conversation. But connecting by text or email can work on the days where connecting over phone or by video isn't possible because maybe one of you is traveling for some other reason, I encourage you to keep your accountability call short and to the point. This is not the time for chitchat. It's a time for you to report on your progress on the day's previous commitments and declare your intended activities for the day ahead. Five minutes should be more than enough time for you and your partner to do that, so the best way to do this is simply remind your partner of the actions you committed to taking the day before and then State whether or not you completed those actions and they do the same thing. And that's it. That's all it takes. You recount yesterday's commitments, you update your partner on your progress and your performance, and then you commit to a new set of actions for the day ahead. Now, this is a powerful exercise because when you know that you'll be reporting back to someone, it provides the extra motivation you need to be productive and get the job done. You see, it's really hard to make excuses to someone who's holding you accountable, so you're much more likely to do whatever it takes to get it done. And when you're on your call, do not let your partner talk about why they didn't do something. Simply ask them if they're willing to recommit to doing it again today. And of course, you can always offer a suggestion for helping them to get it done, but don't let it turn into a long conversation. Now, during your accountability check in, you can also share any ideas, information, contacts, or other resources that might be useful to your partner. You could also take a minute to ask your partner for feedback on something you're thinking about doing. But just be careful. You're not abusing the relationship. They're not your mentor. They're not your coach. They're your accountability partner. Now, another benefit of having an accountability partner is there may be times when they can provide the encouragement and the support that you need when your confidence or courage is waning because you're hitting an obstacle or you're faced with a setback. But remember again, it's important to remember that an accountability partner is not a coaching call or a social call. Accountability partnerships work best and last longest when you keep the call short and focused. Now, a good idea is to set a timer on your cell phone or your computer. Give each other two or three minutes each to share your accomplishments from the previous day and your commitments for today. And that will help make sure your accountability calls don't start taking up too much time. Otherwise, they end up becoming more of a dreaded burden and than a support. So this week, if you don't already have an accountability partner, I challenge you to find one. And don't worry if the first person you ask says no. They simply might be too busy or not interested in using an accountability partner as a success strategy. At this point in time, it's okay. Or they might even already have an accountability partner. But just keep asking possible people until you find someone who's willing to embark on the accountability journey with you. I promise you it will be worth it. So cultivating the practice of working with an accountability partner is a simple but extremely powerful way to stay focused and on track toward the achievement of your dreams and goals. And for many people, including myself, it's been the defining difference between simply having a dream and turning that dream into a reality. Now, if you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it, share it with a friend who may need it, and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one, and for additional success strategies and resources. Be sure to visit my website@jackcampfield.com and also check out the links in the description below and let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks again for watching.