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How to Stay Accountable: The 3-Step Accountability Formula that Gets You Results
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Accountability is one of the core pillars of a sustainable and profitable business. It’s what helps you track your progress and reach the goals that you set!
Accountability is a huge part of the 12-Week Year goal setting program that I used to 5x my business in the last year or so, so you had better believe there would be a post that was dedicated JUST to accountability!
Unfortunately, when people think of accountability, they think of something *negative* … they associate accountability with CONSEQUENCES of doing something they shouldn’t or NOT doing something they should. They also believe that accountability is something external – that others hold YOU accountable for showing up in our business and I want to fix that idea right now.
Accountability is OWNERSHIP.
Ownership of your actions, ownership of your results. No one is going to punish you for not posting on social, or emailing your list if you said you were going to…. even though these are things that can have a major impact on your business.
We are talking about accountability that’s ownership … and that looks like you creating your own goals, tracking your own progress, and taking responsibility either way if things get done or not. If it didn’t get done, accountability means looking at what prevented you from doing it and making changes to future action plans to avoid similar circumstances.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, I want to get really specific in how accountability has 3 parts to it and how each part is critical in the setting and reaching of your goals in your business and how accountability helped me 5x my income in the last year and a half or so.
When I started using the 12-Week Year and practicing accountability, it was March of 2020. I had been dabbling in different offers – helping coaches with launches, creating sales pages, offering marketing strategies…
I felt like I was trying to do too many things, help different types of clients and it was really distracting me from setting up the type of business I really wanted – a solid and predictable source of income working with clients I loved and connected with.
I met my accountability partner Kathy Allen Davis in a Facebook group and we started meeting weekly. (If you don’t know Kathy, she was also on the podcast and has gone from food blogger to 6-figure plant-based lifestyle coach in the last year!) Accountability has been a huge part of her success as well!
Let’s dig into the 3-part accountability formula that can also launch you into success!
Part 1: Tracking Your Efforts
I used a Google Sheet to keep track of the tasks that I planned to do each week and check them off as I went. You’ve heard the quote: “What gets measured gets managed.” At the end of the week, the month, and the quarter, I had a record of each time I did (or didn’t do!) what I said I would.
This helped me to see where my activity (or inactivity) impacted my results through my lead and lag indicators. By looking at patterns of what did and didn’t get done week in and week out, I could see where my action plans needed to be adjusted going forward.
For example, if I saw that 3 weeks in a row I struggled to complete one of my action tasks and it made me realize that the task was just too big, it needed to be adjusted and broken down into 2 smaller tasks that I could fit into my schedule at different times in the week.
This way when I was creating my weekly action plan, I could schedule the first task in a 20-minute block on Monday and the second half in a 25-minute block on Thursday, instead of trying to find a full 45 minutes during the week to devote to this single task.
When I did this I found I had fewer empty spaces in my tracking sheet because I broke that bigger task into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Part 2: Weekly Accountability Scores
Part 2 and 3 are actually the two pieces of what’s called the Weekly Accountability Meeting that’s integral to the 12 Week Year program.
Kathy and I had a standing weekly call where we’d review all of the work we’d done for the week and we knew that Friday at 8:30 you’d better be ready to show up and own it.
Knowing I had a deadline to check off all the boxes kept me moving and motivated me to get it done!
Parkinson’s law states: “Work expands to fill the time allotted to it.”
Meaning, if you have an hour to do something, it will take you about an hour to get it done.
And if you have no deadline, then you have no incentive to get it done and you’ll keep working on it forever.
If you are a victim of infinite procrastination, especially about tasks you really don’t enjoy and don’t want to do, for whatever reason, you know you can put these off indefinitely with a generic to-do list.
But this weekly meeting gave me a set day and time where I knew I wanted to be able to say “Got it all done!”
It gives you that deadline; a set day, time each week so you know that your task list needs to be done and there is a hard cutoff time to report on it!
Part 3: Peer Accountability
Part 2 of the WAM is the peer accountability – meaning you have to tell someone else whether or not you did it.
Each week, not only do you track the tasks you complete, giving you an objective, numeric score of how well you followed the plan, but you have a cutoff day and time by which you need to complete them in order to calculate your score. The next part is standing up in front of your accountability partners and reporting those results.
Believe me, no one is there to judge you or mock you, but to support and cheer you on.
Now you know I’m all about collaboration over competition, and Kathy wasn’t even my competition – we are in totally different types of businesses, but my competitive side definitely came out when it came to these meetings because I did not want to be the one showing up and saying I hadn’t done the work.
I didn’t want Kathy to think I was some kind of slacker or lazy so that got me moving.
Now if you want more evidence that these 3 accountability components are critical to your success, I’ll share this as well:
A study by Dr. Gail Matthews, shows how each additional layer increased goal achievement over a 4-week period:
Goal Achievement Results
Compared to people who simply thought about their goals:
- Writing goals increased achievement by 18.7%
- Writing goals + action plans increased achievement by 42.1%
- Writing goals + action plans + accountability to a friend increased achievement by 49.8%
- Writing goals + action plans + accountability + weekly progress reports increased achievement by 77.6%
The biggest lesson from the study is that clarity + action + accountability produced nearly 78% greater goal achievement than simply thinking about a goal.
The 12 Week Year is literally composed of all of these takes all of these components and gives you
If you follow the process – setting a goal, making space in your calendar for the work that’s required, creating a plan, scheduling and attending a Weekly Accountability Meeting with others you are 95% more likely to achieve that goal.
So these 3 areas are the parts of the accountability formula that exploded my business, helped Kathy to have a recent $15k launch, and will increase the likelihood to 95% that you will achieve your goal!
How has accountability helped you in YOUR business?
Episode Transcript
Welcome, everyone. In this episode, we’re going to be talking all about one of my absolute favorite topics, and this is accountability.
Now, accountability is one of the core pillars of a sustainable and profitable business. Accountability is what helps you track your progress and reach the goals that you set. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that accountability is a huge part of the 12-week-year goal-setting program that I personally use to 5x my business since March of 2020.
So you had better believe that there’s going to be an episode that is just talking about accountability. I’m going to dive right into what people think accountability is, right? When people hear accountability, they think that means consequences, right? It’s a negative connotation. They associate accountability with being embarrassed or shamed for not doing what they should have or doing something that they, that they shouldn’t have.
When they, when they think of accountability, that’s what they think of. And they also think that accountability is something that is externally applied, right? That somebody else holds you accountable for showing up, right? So I want to fix that idea right now. Accountability equals ownership.
It’s the ownership of your actions, the ownership of your results. Nobody is going to punish you for not posting on social media or emailing your list or embarrass you for not doing the things that you said you were going to do in your business. These things are all important and they can have a major impact, but nobody is going to shame you or punish you for not doing them.
Now we’re talking about accountability. That’s ownership. And what that looks like is owning your vision, owning your goals that tie back to your vision and owning the strategies and action plans that are the building blocks of reaching those goals.
And also the ownership of tracking your progress and taking responsibility yourself, either way, if things get done or not. Accountability means looking at what prevented you from doing it and making changes to your future action plans to avoid similar circumstances. Does it mean that the task was too big? Was there not enough time allotted for it?
Was there too much pre-work required? Were you not prepared? Did you need training or special help to get it done? So taking ownership of why the task wasn’t completed just means looking at what prevented you from accomplishing it and fixing it in the future, maybe making the task smaller, maybe doing the pre-work as a separate task ahead of time in order to get it done.
So now that we’ve cleared up what accountability is and what it isn’t, I want to get specific in how accountability has these three parts to it and how each part is critical in the setting and reaching of your goals in your business and how accountability helped me personally to 5x my income in the last almost two years. When I first started using the 12-week year and practicing accountability, it was March of 2020. I had been dabbling in different offers and providing different services.
I had done some launches. I had done some sales page creation, marketing strategies. And I felt like I was trying to do too many things and helping different types of clients.
And it was really distracting me from setting up the type of business that I really wanted, which would provide me with a solid and predictable source of income, working with clients that I loved and connected with. So I met my accountability partner, Kathy Davis, who has been on the podcast. I’ll link her episodes in the show notes.
I had met her in a Facebook group and we started meeting weekly for accountability. So if you aren’t familiar with Kathy’s story, I encourage you to check out that episode. But when we first met, she was an RV food blogger.
She had a YouTube channel and she was putting out recipes for whole food plant-based meals that she and her husband had created. And within two years of starting this accountability meetings, she has become a six-figure plant-based lifestyle coach still in the RV. And that all happened in under two years.
So accountability has been a huge part of her success as well. Without further ado, let’s just dig in to the three-part accountability formula that can also launch you into success. So part one, accountability by tracking your efforts.
So I used a Google Sheet to keep track of the tasks that I plan to do each week and I checked them off as I go. Now you’ve heard the quote, what gets measured gets managed. At the end of the week, month and quarter, I had a record of each time I did or didn’t do what I said I would.
Now this helped me to look back and see where my activity or inactivity, as it were, impacted my results through my lead and lag indicators. Now by looking at these patterns of what did and didn’t get get done week in and week out, I could see where my action plans needed to be adjusted going forward. For example, if I saw that three weeks in a row, I really struggled to complete one action task.
And it made me realize that the task was just too big for the time that I had allotted for it. This task needed to be adjusted and broken down into two smaller tasks that I could more easily fit into my schedule at different times in the week.
Now this way, when I was creating my weekly action plan, I could schedule that first task in a 20-minute block on Monday and then the second half in a 25-minute block on Thursday instead of trying to find a full 45 minutes during the week to devote to this one single task.
Now when I did this, I found that I had fewer empty spaces in my tracking sheet because I broke that bigger task into smaller, more manageable pieces. So part two is weekly accountability scores. So part two and part three are actually the two pieces of what’s called the weekly accountability meeting that’s integral to the 12-week year program.
Now Kathy and I had a standing weekly call where we would review all the work we had done for the week. And we knew that on Friday at 8 30, we were going to be walking through what we hadn’t had done. So we’d better be ready to just show up and own it.
So knowing that I had a deadline to check off all these boxes kept me moving and motivated to get it done. If you are familiar with Parkinson’s law, it states work expands to fill the time allotted to it. Meaning if you have an hour to do something, it’s going to take you an hour to get it done.
And if you have no deadline, well guess what? You have zero incentive to finish it and you will keep working on it forever. If you are like me, an infinite procrastinator, especially about tasks that you don’t really enjoy and you don’t want to do for whatever reason, you know that you can put these off indefinitely with this generic to-do list.
But this weekly meeting gave me a set day and time where I knew I wanted to be able to say, got it all done and show my checklist and show all the checks there to show that I did it.
It gives you that deadline and a set day and time each week so that you know your task list needs to be finished and there is a cutoff time to report on it. Now part three is peer accountability. Part two of the weekly accountability meeting is peer accountability, meaning you have to tell somebody else whether or not you did it.
This is a little bit different than part two because part two is the actual meeting where you have a calendar day and time, but the peer part is actually you’re talking to somebody else, right? So this is why there’s part one and part two. Part two is actually having a conversation with another person to say, yes, I did it. No, I didn’t.
So each week, not only do you track the tasks that you complete, giving you an objective and numeric score of how well you followed the plan that you had set out, but you have that cutoff day and time by which you need to complete them in order to calculate your score.
So this next part is meeting up with your accountability partner and reporting your results and that’s your score. So believe me, in these meetings, nobody’s there to judge you or mock you or shame you, but they’re there to support you and cheer you on.
So you know, I’m all about collaboration over competition. And it’s funny because Kathy was not my competition. We are in totally different types of businesses, but my competitive side definitely came out when it came to these meetings because I did not want to be the one showing up and saying I hadn’t done the work.
And I didn’t want Kathy to think I was some kind of slacker or lazy. So that definitely kept me moving. So if you want some more evidence that accountability is critical to your success, I’m going to share this study.
And I’ve shared this in a previous episode as well, but it’s really, it’s, this is really interesting. A study was done by the association for talent development and they found that individuals have the following probabilities of completing a goal by taking the following action. So action one is having the idea of a goal, right? You just come up with this idea.
You’re 10% likely to complete your goal. The next action is consciously deciding you’re going to reach your goal. Your probability jumps up to 25% with the action is deciding when you’re going to do it.
Your probability jumps up to 40%. Now, once you plan how you’re going to do it, your probability jumps up to 50%, committing to somebody else that you’re going to do it. That’s just telling somebody that you plan to reach this goal.
You bump up to 65%. Having a specific accountability appointment with somebody that you’ve committed to, right? This is your weekly accountability meeting for your 12 week year. You will bump up to 95% probability of completing your goal if you do that.
So what’s great is that the 12 week year is literally composed of all of these tasks that I just listed and gives you the complete process for setting the goal, creating a plan, having accountability and taking ownership of what you’re doing in your business to reach your goal.
And I have to say, I think Kathy and I are really good examples of how this works and testimonials to the process because we have both seen amazing growth in our business just by adopting the 12 week year process and following it for the last close to almost two years. So just to wrap up, you can see that these three areas are all part of the accountability formula that has exploded my business and it helped Kathy to recently have a 15K launch and it’s going to increase the likelihood of you reaching your goal to 95%.
So I hope this helps you. If you are at a point in your business where you really want to start growing and you aren’t sure what the steps are to take next to get to that next level, check out the show notes. There’s going to be the links for the study that I mentioned for the quiz and you can take this quiz to find out where you are in your business and what action plan actually aligns best with where you are in your business.
So make sure to check all that out. Thanks for listening. And if you liked this episode, go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe so you’ll be notified when the next episode is live.
Check out our show notes for this episode where you can find any of the links and resources that were mentioned during the show. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you in the next episode.
