As some of you know me from the group on-line Accountability Sessions I hold bi-monthly with CoWorking Days, I decided to elaborate on how Accountability Sessions work.
What is Accountability
When we are children, our parents tell us what to do. At school, we enter a formal structure within which we learn according to a clear schedule. Our outcomes are evaluated, we need to do homework on a regular basis, we prepare assignments, we do tests and pass final exams. At the university, again, we follow a well defined formal system of obligatory lectures and labs. We have papers to write and exams to pass each semester. The rules are clear, the expected outcomes are set out. The deadlines are rigid and we get punished by not following the rules.
When we enter the job market and we get employed, again, there are rules to follow, work time, schedules, objectives to achieve and a boss who follows our work and gives us orders.
All the above are accountability systems. In all of them, there are sets of specific rules, plans and schedules to follow. They all have also a reward/punishment system, either in terms of grades and promotion at school and university, or a bonus system and internal evaluation system for employees, impacting the salary and promotion perspectives. But here is a big question:
Who Keeps An Entrepreneur Accountable?
So how does it look like in the case of an entrepreneur? For most of us, a strong motivator to become an entrepreneur is to have freedom. Freedom to be our own boss, to have a flexible schedule, to live wherever we want to and work from under a palm tree on a beach if we please. And we love it.
However, we share one challenge specific to our lifestyle and working style: we don’t have such a clear, well defined accountability system in place, as corporate employees have.
When you are your own boss, you evaluate your own work and decide on your own schedule and deadlines. In theory it’s great, but in practice you can easily fall in a trap of not delivering the results – simply because you don’t HAVE TO. Unless a client sets a deadline, no one will keep you accountable for not doing certain tasks or doing them late, slowly, inefficiently. The risk of procrastination is huge for solo entrepreneurs. But don’t despair, there is an effective solution for that!
How Accountability Sessions Help Entrepreneurs
That’s exactly what accountability sessions can help you with. Accountability is one of the main reasons why people hire a coach in the first place. Think about a personal trainer: you hire him to show you the best technique of exercising and to choose the optimum activities for the goals that you have, but also because he will be assessing how you work out and he will hold you accountable for the results, week after week. That’s just how a life coach helps you, too: by keeping a track of your regular progress.
Individual Vs. Group Accountability Sessions
There are two forms of Accountability Sessions: individual and group ones.
Individual Accountability Sessions
On individual Accountability Sessions, you first go through the structured process of clarifying your goals, assessing your current situation and discussing your desired destination. Then, together with your coach, you plan how to build a bridge that will take you from where you are, to where you want to be. Only after that, you proceed to the detailed activities helping you to set long-term, mid-term and short-term actionable plans.
Your big and ambitious goals get chunked into tasks small enough to be carried out in a day or week time. Week by week, on each Accountability Session, the coach tracks your progress in details. You make corrections and adjustments, you tweak your strategy and update your planner. You can count on encouragement and constant support from the coach. Accountability Sessions are held weekly when you need them most in the first 8 or more weeks. And then you may continue as suits you best, for instance monthly or once in two months, depending on your needs. Continuing sporadic accountability checks will highly improve your goal achievement, especially in case on big, complex life or business goals.
Group Accountability Sessions
Group Accountability Sessions work differently for the obvious reason of “squeezing” the needs of an entire group into a 1-hour session. They are much more simplified and general than the individual ones, yet they are also effective and bring good results, especially if you are clear about your goals, needs and obstacles and you don’t have difficulties working on your goals on your own.
The good part about working in a group is the social pressure that motivates you to deliver on what you promised. How does it work? On each meeting, you declare a detailed, specific and measurable goal you intend to achieve before the next group session. Each group member makes such a promise. Next time we meet, we discuss our results. The coach asks you some questions to observe and analyze the process of goal achievement. Has everyone achieved what they declared? If yes, what helped them to keep the deadline? If not, why didn’t they complete their tasks? Is the reason ‘why’ convincing, or does it sound like an excuse? How can it be avoided next time? What were the obstacles you encountered working on your goal? We discuss these and other issues and draw conclusions. Then, we set new or continued goals for the next two weeks.
Results of Accountability Sessions
Research shows that accountability sessions improve goal achievement even as much as by 310%. Therefore, by being kept accountable, you become more effective and reach your goals more quickly – within the deadline you set for yourself. You also develop better habits when you do it regularly.
If you want to know more about Accountability Sessions, write to me at: contact@entrepreneurs.solutions
I will write more about accountability in the coming months. To stay posted, subscribe to the free weekly Solutions newsletter below.
Keywords: Accountability, Accountability Sessions, Individual Accountability Sessions, Group Accountability Sessions
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