MBA2227 How to Hold Yourself Accountable + Free Ride Friday

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Heyo. Welcome to the $100 RMBA show. Business truths delivered on the daily every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company. I started my co founder back in 2014 and today is Free Ride Friday where we give away a free ride to one of our programs. We're giving away easy course, our 30 day course on how to build your own online course in 30 days. It retails for $500 over at EasyCourse Co or you can win it for free. Just leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday just like today, to see if you won. We announce this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. In today's lesson, you will learn how to hold yourself accountable. Many of us set out goals for the year, for the quarter, for the month, whatever it might be, with full confidence we can do it. But then we fall short. It's not like you're not working hard or putting in the hours. It's more like you didn't actually commit to focusing on what you're supposed to be doing. This boils down to the fact that you're not holding yourself accountable. And it's one of the biggest challenges a lot of entrepreneurs have because they don't have a boss, they have to be their own boss or create systems to make sure that they actually do what they're supposed to do. So in today's lesson, I'm going to show you how you can hold yourself accountable, to stay focused, stay on track and get the things you want to accomplish in the done pile. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Support for today's show comes from virtual gurus. Many business owners get stuck. They can't scale their business anymore because they've run out of all the time they have. They're working, they're hustling, but it's just not enough. The key to scaling your business is offloading work you shouldn't be doing. You need to start building a team of people doing tasks that are sucking your time, but not really your secret sauce, your superpower that you love doing every day. How do you start building that team? Well, that's where virtual gurus come in. They help you build a team around you to get the support you need without breaking the bank. They match you with skilled, remote administrative talent and you pay only for the hours you need. With an affordable subscription plan with no long term commitments or recruiting costs, you can build the support team you need while keeping your operation lean, saving you up to 40% compared to traditional hiring costs. And virtual gurus can help you find great people with great skill sets in all kinds of areas like bookkeeping and data entry, sales and marketing support, email and calendar management, and a whole lot more. They can connect you with one general assistant or multiple specialized assistants. But one of my favorite things about virtual gurus is that they're on a mission to provide meaningful work opportunities for unique, underrepresented communities. So you'll benefit from an incredibly diverse talent pool. Book a free consult@thevirtualgurus.com MBA that's thevirtualgurus.com MBA and get the support you need. Let's jump right into it. The first thing we need to establish when it comes to holding yourself accountable is we need to firmly believe that it's your responsibility to hold yourself accountable, nobody else's. No one's going to do this for you. It's not going to happen by itself. It's not going to happen organically. You need to do something. You need to actually take action to make sure you're held accountable. This is actually quite important because a lot of us don't even get past this step. We don't actually fully comprehend and understand and agree and believe that that's our responsibility, that if we don't do it, then it's not going to get done. When I say do it, I mean if we don't do anything, take actions to make sure we're held accountable, then we won't be held accountable. I know it makes total sense. It seems very simple, but usually it's the simple things that we don't do. You see, here's the reality. Unless you absolutely love something, you're dying to do it every single day. There's a slim chance you're going to do it consistently. For example, I love coffee. So every morning I look forward to my cup of coffee. I probably won't miss it even on holiday. But doing things to improve my sales process, that, on the other hand, I could probably do without some days. And that's where you fall inconsistent, and that's where you're not holding yourself accountable. Another example is going to the gym. Many people, they get a personal trainer. Why? Because they know if they don't have to meet somebody at the gym every single time they have to work out, they won't go to the gym. They need an external reason outside of just being healthy, outside of the fact that, hey, you're supposed to go to the gym. To go to the gym, they need to put some social pressure on themselves. They need to put a little bit of guilt in play. They need to do whatever they can to get their butt in the gym. And this is the point of today's lesson. If you want to hold yourself accountable to the things that you set out to do, you need to be ruthless about what you need to do to make sure it happens. So most people, they think of strategies like, I'm going to work in public, I'm going to build in public, and I'm going to tell everybody on Twitter that I'm going to be launching this product in March, for example, and that will hold me accountable. And I'll want to make sure I hit that deadline so that I don't disappoint the people on Twitter. Unfortunately, that's not a strong enough reason to do it. Okay, you see, you can let March go by and not launch that thing, and no one's gonna follow up with you. No one's gonna ask you, hey, where's your product? I thought it was supposed to be out in March. People are busy with their own thing. It's kind of a fake accountability you're putting out there. We want results. So let's really figure out what do we need to do to make sure we put our feet to the fire. So I'm going to share with you some of the strategies that I've used in the past that has really worked to hold myself accountable. Strategy number one, join a mastermind or create one for yourself. Some of the early masterminds I was a part of were paid where I paid to be a part of, and some of them I created myself. We were just a group of four or five entrepreneurs that we kind of knew online and we just got together and said, hey, let's meet weekly and hold each other accountable. Just by meeting weekly where we had to share what we worked on, what we got done, what we planned to do next week, and if we have any blockers or need help from each other. That exercise alone pushed me to get everything done in time because I had to show my work every single week. Now, this doesn't work if everybody on the mastermind is not on the same page. Meaning you all agree you hold each other accountable. Some people are okay with this. Some people don't like confrontation and are not down with saying, hey, what happened to doing xyz? You said last week you're going to do xyz. As I could see in the spreadsheet that we have here. What happened here? When are you going to get it done? I've been part of masterminds where people don't do that and it's a bit of a waste of time. It's a bit of a brag fest or a bit of socialization that really is not helping you hold yourself accountable. So that has to be an agreement. Even if the group is smaller, that's fine. Three people, even two people, you know, just a buddy system. If you hold each other accountable, it's actually going to really help you make progress with your goals. Strategy number two, hire a coach. I've had several mentors and coaches throughout my entrepreneurial career. In the last 20 years, I paid coaches between $10,000 and $30,000 a year. And the number one thing I got from it was not the content or the strategies or even the networking with the other people in the group, but really it was the accountability is the coach is expecting me to get things done by a certain amount of time and I took pride to make sure I did those things. So, a, I don't disappoint my coach, but two, I don't disappoint myself. And three, I don't waste my money. As you could see already with these two options, we are building external reasons to get things done other than the goal itself. It's okay to do that. By the way. Some people say, no, I should be doing it for the goal. We're human beings. Sometimes we need other tools to get things done. Just like hiring the coach just so that I show up and see the coach to get me into the gym. If you can't go to the gym on your own and you hire a coach to do so, that doesn't make you any less of a person. It makes you a smarter person because you know what makes you tick. So don't be too proud to build external reasons to hold yourself accountable. Number three, build out incentives for yourself. Build out. Listen, most people in a job work because of incentives. They might get an hourly wage, but hey, they want to work harder to get a promotion and get a raise. If they're in sales, they get commission. They might get bonuses. Why is it this way? Because that's human nature. We will work harder. We'll do things if we have a reward. So use that on yourself. If you hit your quarterly goals and it impacts the bottom line your business in a positive way, give yourself a bonus. Give yourself something to say, hey, great job. And that could equal for you a holiday you want to go on, or maybe a down payment on a car, or maybe you want to upgrade your wardrobe. Whatever it is, the point here is that all this sounds exciting and fun because we love incentives. So instead of trying to deny yourself of your own human nature, use it to your advantage. I got more on today's topic, but before that, let me share some love to today's sponsor. Support for today's show comes from virtual gurus. The biggest lesson I've learned in the last 10 years as an entrepreneur is that my time and what I spend my time on is the single thing that will determine my success. If you want to drive your business forward, you got to find the discipline to focus on the key priorities you need to tackle while getting the right support for the things others can do for you. How do you find these people that can do this work for you? Well, that's where virtual gurus comes in. You can get the support you need to outsource the tasks you shouldn't be doing without breaking the bank. They match you with skilled, remote administrative talent and you only pay for the hours you need through an affordable subscription plan with no long term commitments or recruiting costs. That means you can build the support team you need while keeping your operations lean, saving you up to 40% compared to traditional hiring costs. Virtual gurus can match you with remote assistants who have a range of skill sets, including bookkeeping and data entry, sales and marketing support, email and calendar management, and more. Book a free consult@thevirtualgurus.com MBA that's thevirtualgurus.com MBA and get the support you need.

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To share with you a couple more strategies when it comes to holding yourself accountable. One of the strategies that has really helped me over the years is journaling by just telling myself to write something in my journal every morning. Even if it's just two lines, the consistency matters. What does this have to do with accountability? Well, it's a constant reminder of what you're working on, what you're focusing on, what you're feeling. Like every single day, it recenters you and reminds you, hey, this is what's important. I set out a goal. This is what I'm supposed to be focused on and I can look at my journal and say, okay, the things I said in my journal that I'm going to be working on today and what is occupying my mind? Is it aligned with the goal? If not, I need to change things up. It's an instant indication if I'm on track or not. But in addition to that, I'm able to look back in my journal. So for example, I can look at my journal for 2022 and look at how I actually stayed on track, what I did every day, what I talked about, what I thought about, what was my state of mind that allowed me to achieve the goals that I set out, kind of reverse engineering success. This reminds me that I can do big things, that I can stay consistent, I can hold myself accountable, and I already know what I need to know to get it done. My last strategy is an interesting and fun one that I have found is incredibly helpful and that's co working co working with somebody, either in person or even online is a great way to hold each other accountable. Even if it's not all day, even if it's just like for three or four hours where when you start coworking you say, hey, this is my focus. These are my goals for this quarter. This is what I'm gonna do today to help achieve those big time goals that I have. And you listen to your partner or your partners what they're working on. And what I've seen many people do is they actually work together, sharing the screen on their computer to hold each other accountable. Hey, you're being distracted with something here. Be careful, especially if it's more than a minute or two. This totally works in person. Actually, it's easier in person because you're just sitting side by side and it allows you to stay laser focused. It's incredible how different we work when somebody's watching. Don't deny it, don't hate it. Use it to your advantage to hold yourself accountable and get things done. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you think this podcast is amazing, if you enjoy it, if you get something out of it, the best way to pay it forward is to subscribe and follow the podcast. So whether you're on Spotify or Stitcher radio or Apple podcasts or overcast, make sure you are following the podcast that you're subscribed. By doing so, you tell the algorithm, hey, this podcast is pretty cool, but it also allows you to get access to over 2200 episodes in our archives and makes sure you don't miss a beat that you get the next episode automatically. Thank you in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this and what I found in the last 20 years of entrepreneurship that it's the absolute truth is business is about discipline. The more you are self aware of what you can and cannot do and disciplined enough to take the actions you need to take to to get the help you need to get the things you want to get done done, the better off you'll be, the easier this whole thing is. In my book, discipline is freedom. When you're disciplined and you get things done and you apply these strategies to your everyday life and your work. It frees you up from the burden of feeling guilty, of feeling overworked, of feeling like you're spinning your wheels. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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