Do you want to know the reason why successful people achieve their goals?

After spending a lot of time in groups full of business owners and working with many different coaches I finally learnt how they continually succeed and smash their goals.

Their secret weapon is one that had been hidden in plain sight all along.

ACCOUNTABILITY.

If you are accountable to someone for your job, it acts as a great motivation to get the job done, because you want to get paid and not get in someone’s bad books, right? However, when you are the sole person in charge of a project it can be so hard to stay on track.

So, now you are probably thinking ‘… but how can I be held accountable when I work for myself?’

well… this is what myself and a lot of other business owners I know do…

#1. Accountability Buddy

Team up with a buddy who is on a similar journey to you – Someone who you really click with and can bounce ideas off. Each week, get together either in person or online and tell each other what you are planning to achieve the week. Then come together at the end of the week to tell each other how you got on. This is so simple yet super effective as you will be able to keep each other motivated and push each other to plough through your workloads and get things done. It also really helps to have someone to talk to about what you are doing in your business, someone who will listen to the highs and lows of running a creative business as well as celebrate all of your wins with.

I have had a few accountability buddies over the years, some successful, some not so much – It’s not always easy to stay on track with each other when you have so much going in your business as well as a life outside of it all, so, it’s important to find the right buddy and schedule in when you will meet each week and stick to it.

The feeling I got when I hadn’t managed to do what I planned to do really puts everything into perspective as to why I hadn’t done it. – Which is something I never really thought about until I was held accountable. For me, it was mostly because I had given myself a crazy workload. (I liked to do everything myself and I didn’t like to wait) Having someone hold me accountable for my actions made me realise how much pressure I put on myself. So, I had to learn to adjust the number of hours I had to get my work done each day and start delegating things that I felt didn’t need all of my input and I started feeling a lot less weighed down. (woohoo!)

If you are looking for an accountability buddy, the best way to find someone is to join some Facebook groups and start a conversation or go to local networking events to meet like-minded business owners.

#2. DWYSYWD -(Do What You Say You Will Do)

In order to ensure success with a goal, you must keep your word. When you are running your own business, it is so easy to get overwhelmed and forget about the importance of goals. Business owners have one main goal which is usually ‘to do it well’ or ‘create a business so I don’t have to work for someone else’ but honestly, this is just not enough.

So, set goals and hold yourself accountable for fulfilling them. As a business owner, you are liable for your actions. If it doesn’t work, well,  you can be damn sure that there is a reason for it and it is likely that you got tunnel vision on that one main goal of doing well and missed two-thirds of the road signs along the way. So, if you say you are going to do something, then make sure that you actually DO IT. Keep track of all of your promises (goals) Integrity is the key here!

#3. Group accountability

By joining a group of like-minded business owners, you will feel really empowered and even get some help on the road to reaching your goals. There are many social media platforms that offer group features including Facebook and LinkedIn. Or you could become a part of a membership site to help you reach your goals and stay on track.

Every Monday morning in the The Create & Bloom Collective Facebook Group we get ourselves motivated for the week ahead so feel free to join us right here if you haven’t already.

#4. Put a blog out on an upcoming goal

Writing about your goals to your audience can help you put into perspective what you actually need to get done in order to smash that big goal and it will also help you retain your accountability for it as you may just come up with an interesting plan in the process of writing which will likely give you massive motivation. You don’t even have to publish it if you don’t want to. Keep it as a diary if you want or print it out and read over once you are nearing the end of your goals or have completed it – A tremendous sense of achievement will hit you and you will end up creating more big business goals and will feel fully prepped to reach them.

#5. Post a goal on Social Media

This might sound scary as hell, but believe me, if you put something out on social media about an upcoming piece of art you are working on or challenge you will be completing then you WILL work toward that goal. I have done this so many times and it pushes me to get it finished.

First, however, you need to trust yourself enough to go through with it.

So, here is an interesting little challenge for you… Do you have a project that you are working on that seems to be taking forever to finish? Take that project and turn it into a 10-day challenge and every single day, post your progress on your social media channels. When your followers start responding to your project, it is only going to motivate you to keep on going.

#6. Use a calendar or planner

This is probably one of the most simple things that could be given as a tip but let’s be honest here how many of us buy a planner and never look at it? I have been very guilty of this in the past but now I have turned it around – I have a planner for my day to day activities so I can plan my week accordingly, a monthly planner that helps me figure out what I need to get done each month and I also have a daily online To Do list that notifies from my PC, mobile phone and tablet every single day at 9 am and 3 pm to get those daily little things done that can sometimes feel like they take forever.

I also like to keep track of any achievements and celebrate them each month by rereading back through what I have done – The sense of achievement is overwhelming sometimes!

If you don’t like the idea of having a full planner, check out 90-Day Planning Printable here.

Also, I highly recommend using an App called ‘Asana’. This app has literally changed my life and saved me a lot of time that would normally be spent procrastinating on what I should be doing.