Achieve Your Goals with an Accountability Buddy

When looking to change your habits or try something new, having an accountability buddy (also known as accountability partners) is a way to drastically increase the likelihood that you will stick to, and enjoy, the process of working towards your goals.

We all know feeling come January; the New Year’s Resolutions to live a better life in the upcoming year. We stick with our fitness or nutrition plan for a few weeks, and come March we are back to what we were doing before. Don’t feel bad – you aren’t alone in this. A study by the University of Scranton found that 92% of people do not accomplish their goal – one of the main reasons is they don’t have that positive peer pressure that an accountability buddy provides.

There are other reasons don’t stick with goals (and willpower isn’t one of them). Check out the below guides to help have success in your goals.

• A 4 Step Plan to Better Goal Setting (WOOP)
• How to Change an Old Habit and Create Positive New Habits
• Beginner’s Mindset | Learning to be Innovative

What is an Accountability Buddy?

An accountability buddy (or buddies) is the person or people you ask to hold you to your commitments that you make for yourself. Through the process of positive peer pressure and holding you accountable, they help you achieve your goals or start doing the things you know you should be doing for yourself.

Accountability buddies are common for physical fitness, starting or improving a business or side hustle, completing a passion project, or any other ambitious goal.

The Benefits of an Accountability Buddy

1. You are Held Responsible

Accountability buddies make us feel like we have someone that we can’t let down. Studies show that school children with an accountability buddy (not that they label them), are less likely to be disruptive in the classroom since they cite not wanting to let their friends down.

Outside of school – the same holds true for adults. We never lose the mindset that when someone is counting on us, we try harder and are more likely to stick with the task when it gets challenging.

2. Improved Performance

Research shows that when someone publicly shares their goals, they have around a 65% chance of success. However, having a specific accountability partner boosts that chance to 95%.

The reason being is they know their goal’s progress, and the result will be shared with – which makes people more likely to try harder and focus their energy on the small improvements. Instead of mustering the mental energy to focus on the goal in the first place.

3. Provides a Mental Outlet

Working on self-improvement is hard. Having someone be on your team lets your accountability buddy encourage you when you hit a rough patch, keeps you grounded when the task seems too daunting, and is a sounding board for how you can improve and what you are doing well.

Part of the challenge of going in alone to projects without an accountability buddy is that you lack that human interaction piece where you can stay in a good headspace and receive feedback.

Part of deliberate practice to develop goals quickly is you need immediate feedback – having an accountability buddy helps with that process.

4. Helps with Feedback & Provides Time to Slow Down

Often when we get spun up on a project it becomes go go go. However, taking the time to receive feedback and slow down to course correct when necessary is paramount to having long-term goal success.

Your accountability buddy will help you get there by being that voice that lets you get feedback and slow down when needed.

The Types of Accountability Buddies

For different goals, having different types of accountability buddies helps you stay flexible with the demands of each task.

1. Individual Accountability

These are situations where you pick an accountability buddy to help you achieve your personal or professional goals. They aren’t working on anything but they are holding you accountable to your goal.

Think of this as a mentor relationship, hopefully, they have already done something similar so they can provide you with feedback. Then they monitor your progress and give your course-correcting advice, and can also give you tasks.

Such as meeting with one new person a week, applying to jobs before graduation, and/or trying a new marketing campaign in your business. They have advice and hold your commitment to your self-improvement goals.

2. Team Accountability

Typical in Organizations, they want to have positive peer pressure throughout their organization. Space where everyone is improving each other to work harder and develop new skills.

Anecdotally, my organization recently had a well-being challenge. In my team of six, we had to do 6/10 well-being activities every day for our team to win a prize drawing. If I was alone, I probably would have done 6 or 7 a day. With my team, we all averaged 8.7 well-being activities a day by the end of the month-long project.

Having team pressure encourages everyone to step up and do a little more.

3. Reciprocal Accountability

Reciprocal accountability is when two people going through the same experience make each other their accountability buddies.

Having reciprocal accountability is common with fitness, side hustles, and diet goals. By having someone go through the same experience as you, you can motivate each other and lift each other through the challenges when they arise.

How to Pick Your Accountability Buddy

1 Pick Someone Not in your Immediate Circle

It is tempting to pick someone in your immediate circle. A spouse, best friend, or co-worker. However, whether you know it or not, you already have emotions and experiences tied up with that person. Making changes can be hard enough normally, let alone with someone you know well.

Instead, pick someone that is a friend of a friend or an associate who you think could hold you accountable since the goal can be your shared talking point instead of your history.

2. Pick Someone you Want to Impress

When receiving feedback, we are prone to that voice that says, “what do they know?” You want your accountability buddy to be someone who quelches those thoughts. Mostly, because they are someone you want to impress and model.

For instance, let’s say you have a fitness goal. You could pick the nice man/woman at the gym who has impressed you with how he/she is always in shape and consistent with their workouts. Ask them to hold you accountable for the same.

3. Pick Someone who Gives Good Feedback

Part of the job of being an accountability buddy is providing feedback. Find someone who can give you candid feedback in a way that works for you. Not too tough, but not too gentle either – something that helps you improve.

Best Practices for your Accountability Buddy

1. Do a test-run

Especially with someone who is just an associate, schedule a 2-week test run to see if the accountability buddy partnership works for the both of you. In terms of schedule, time commitment, and personality styles.

Doing a test run provides an out for both parties without having to feel awkward or committed to a month’s long project that they don’t see working six days in.

2. Set up deadlines, milestones, and goals

Look at the calendar and set your deadlines, schedule, milestones, and goals. Having a roadmap ensures that you are staying on track. You can always adjust them as time goes on and goals change. But the act of making the deadlines makes you accountable and you know where you have to get to.

3. Set-up Weekly Check-ins

At the same time each week, have some sort of check-in with your accountability buddy. Even if it is to report everything is going fine. Having that time on the calendar each week serves as a reminder that someone is committed to your success to take 15 minutes for a call, or to meet you somewhere. Plus, it provides them a chance to ask relevant questions and for you to get feedback on your progress.

4. Establish Rules

What are examples of acceptable and unacceptable behavior? How do you like to receive feedback? How do they like to give feedback? What are the expectations of each other?

By setting ground rules, you know better what is important to the other person and sets rules of engagement for if there ever is an argument between you.

5. Reflect on your goals

Every three months, reflect on your progress and your overall journey. What has changed? What have you learned? Which aspects are you excited about with this goal? Do you want to adjust your goal?

Key Take-Aways

• Having an accountability buddy makes you more likely to stick with, and achieve your ambitious goals.
• Finding a great accountability buddy takes some work and is a balancing act of personality and life circumstances. However, the relationship can be invaluable to both parties.

Action Item

What is the next big goal for yourself? Who do you know that has already accomplished something similar? Can you set up time in the next two weeks to talk with them and see if they can be your accountability buddy for your next step!