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How to Hold Yourself Accountable for Goals

By Darren Finkelstein
By Darren Finkelstein

The Accountability Guy®

How to Hold Yourself Accountable for Goals

Holding yourself accountable for your goals can be a task!

How to Hold Yourself Accountable for Goals? We all have tried to set goals for ourselves in one way or another, leaving an unhealthy habit, trying to learn something new that will take us ahead of our current selves, or just incorporating healthy practices in our daily schedule. But more often than not, we find ourselves failing to accomplish those goals or even initiating them.

This failure can often be frustrating at times, or one often blames a toxic environment for failing to accomplish the very goals they set to escape that same environment. Procrastination is a critical factor in unattended duties and failure to grab that pie in the sky. Let us explore how you can hold yourself accountable for your own goals and actions and improve yourself.

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Remind Yourself

In the pursuit of action, one often forgets the consequences of achieving the very goal one sets. This can make you steer away from the path that you set for yourself and result in failure. Keep reminding yourself daily of the reasons you chose to fix that particular goal for yourself. Every time you find yourself slacking off or a specific urge to pursue another goal manifests itself as a desire, let that urge be a trigger to remind yourself.

Think about the possible effects this mindset will have on your goals and, ultimately, your own life. A well-laid-out plan can have life-changing consequences. When the going gets tough, and it will, do not lose hope and have a well-laid-out portrayal of the bliss of accomplishing the goal you set.

Keep An Accountability Trigger

A good friend can act as an accountability trigger and help you steer on the correct path once you stray too far from your goals. Reminders of a grim reality where your dreams haven’t been accomplished can be a perfect trigger. A good friend has to be your accountability trigger from the get-go and not let that duty of his fizzle out with time. But there is another strong accountability trigger that you may not like but works like a charm.

‘Enemies’, you know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. A critical enemy will never let go of a single opportunity to point out where you’re going wrong, albeit, for negative criticism, you can put such a person to extract helpful information from their criticism. Know your strengths and believe in them before listening to such a person, but also know the areas you lack in.  

Reward yourself

We have all read about the science experiment conducted by Russian scientist Pavlov. He found that certain things can behave as trigger mechanisms to induce psychological and physiological effects in animals as well as in humans. A person can always reward themselves after accomplishing a small step in the pursuit of their goal. Such actions will release ‘Endorphins’, the feel-good molecules released by the body, and you will feel motivated to keep achieving your goals and work towards them.

As you go on with rewarding yourself after accomplishing small tasks, your brain starts to link them with happiness. This results in even more progress towards your goals.

Set Realistic Goals

Setting realistic goals will help you achieve small yet substantial goals and assist in establishing a solid foundation on which you will build bigger plans. An aspiring singer should not set expectations to become an overnight sensation, or a gym goer should not set unrealistic body expectations for themselves in a given time frame. 

Deciding on time limits can help you achieve realistic, short goals for yourself. An amateur coder does not write perfect scripts in a matter of days, or an Olympic-level athlete does not accomplish the required stamina in one day or one week; they work hard their entire lives to attain something only dreamt of by the masses. They all start out step-by-step, setting realistic goals for themselves. Setting unrealistic goals will only demotivate you from carrying on with your goals.

Record Your Progress

Setting up a journal or a diary to record your small accomplishments will help you observe how little progress can lead up to huge numbers. As you begin to observe growth literally in numbers, you are reminded of what small efforts can result in. A Runner, for example, can record their time for sprints every day and watch their progress in decreasing the time taken for every run or sprint.

Similarly, a weight loss enthusiast can jot down their progress in kilograms every day on a piece of paper and feel motivated by observing changes that are noticeable.

Summing It Up

A clear picture of what you desire from your goals can help you realize those goals and help yourselves. Seeking assistance and deriving helpful and positive conclusions from every little aspect of life can help you a long way down. Believing you can accomplish your goals and putting yourself to hard work from the get-go will cement your success.