Let me ask you a simple but very important question? “Do you find yourself consistently inconsistent in your real estate business and personal life?” How do we hold ourselves accountable and stop procrastinating? How do we break that consistently inconsistency trend in business and life? One simple answer is to get an accountability buddy.
Think back to school. What motivated you to finally finish a paper? Was it a love of learning? Knowing how valuable this skill was going to be in the future? No. It was probably a looming deadline and the threat of a failing grade for turning it in late.
During school, we have built-in accountability. For grown-up goals like starting a business, losing weight or writing a book, there’s typically no accountability for us to get it done. Accountability buddies can help us make meaningful progress. Surrounding ourselves with people invested in our success is the best way to make progress on our goals. Follow these steps to set up an accountability buddy.
1. Create a schedule and commit. - Decide how frequently you’ll meet. Once a week is a good starting point. You’ll have time to get things done in between your meetups (either in person or on the phone), but not so long that you start procrastinating or forgetting what you agreed to. Then set a time and commit. Put it on your calendar and don’t let anything get in the way.
2. Help your buddy (and yourself) set better goals. Then we have a broad goal like “get healthy,” the failure comes in not knowing where to start. What do we do this month, this week, today, to make that happen? If we can’t answer that simply, how are we supposed to act on it? Create SMART objectives that follow these guidelines:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-oriented
3. Be honest with each other. - My friend recently told me about an event he attended. A group of women were brought in to give direct feedback about how they perceived a group of men’s clothing and demeanor. Try to imagine what happened. “The guys were crying,” my friend said. “Nobody had ever given us this kind of brutal feedback.” My friend realized he’d never before received brutally honest feedback on how he interacted with women. We should subject ourselves to uncomfortable situations where we take on the “beginner’s mind” and force ourselves to grow. An accountability buddy gives us the rare opportunity for brutal honesty.
4. Ask great questions. - Smart people ask questions because they know it’s the best way to get to the true heart of a matter. When you say you were too busy to work out this week, what are you really saying?
Chances are you had time to watch Netflix or go out for drinks, so what really held you back? Maybe you were nervous about walking into a new gym. By asking great questions, you and your accountability buddy can break through invisible barriers.
5. Gamify accountability with your friends. - I love bets. There are myriad psychological studies about public commitment, which is highly persuasive. If you tell a group of people you’re going to stop smoking, you’re highly motivated to hit that goal. You can do this with your accountability buddy, too. If you each set a goal, bet who will hit it first. Or you can keep score of who completes more of their weekly tasks. Make it fun!
If this was so easy we wouldn’t need to be held accountable and we all need to find that accountability. That consistently being inconsistent happens to us all. I challenge you to take one step towards accountability this coming week and in a few weeks text me 250-212-8220 what changes you have noticed from those steps you have taken!!
Strength and courage,
Wade
