Why Having an Accountability Partner Will Make You a Better Practitioner

Professionals set milestones, yet miss some or many. The author in this article proposes a reason for why goals are not met and proposes a solution in this article.

You know what you need to do to grow your practice. You say you’re gonna do them. They are on your to-do list. So why haven’t you done them?

Face it, we generally know what we need to do (in almost any situation). But most of us, including me, stumble when it comes to actually getting it done. Here are five things I wanted to do in 2023, but have not either started or finished:

• Learn Notion
• Write an eBook
• Build my own customized GPT
• Move my e-mail newsletters to a blog
• Take the “Camera Confidence” course I paid for

We’re all busy. And sometimes, we don’t follow through on our best intentions. We have client deadlines. A personal emergency or household crisis. Or we feel we deserve that R&R downtime, darn it! There are lots of reasons, or excuses, depending on your viewpoint.

Here’s how I am fixing this problem in 2024: I got myself an accountability partner! Someone to whom I’ve pledged to get certain things done by a specific date … no matter what. And they’ve pledged the same things to me.

Here is How it Works

1. We exchanged accountability lists, prepared in Excel, of course. Our lists have the following headers: Priority, Task Description, What’s Holding Me Back, and Completion Date.
   FYI, the tasks are not our respective to-do lists. Instead, they are four to five projects that will move our practices furthest, fastest in the next six to 12 months.

2. Under each item are the progress notes we’ve made since our last phone call.
3. We call each other once a week to check-in.

I must say it has motivated us, partly because our projects are things we know we should be doing, partly because we don’t want to admit to a friend that there are things we didn’t get to because of x or y or z, and partly because we are accountable to each other.

We’ve only had a few calls so far, but I can tell it is working for me, and I wish I had done this a long time ago.

Here’s Why it Works

1. It requires us to get specific about what we’re planning and when, which increases the likelihood that we will set aside the time to tackle our projects.
2. We’re making a commitment to each other, and knowing we’ll have to report back to each other encourages us to follow through.
3. We’re invested in each other’s success; my victories are his and vice versa.

In Real Life

We may have problems with how to do something. A side benefit of the accountability partnership is that my partner may have been down the same path, or knows someone who has, and can suggest alternatives or resources I might consider figuring out the how.

So What?

Here’s what I like about having an accountability partner. The whole structure is simple to grasp, easy to implement, and doesn’t cost either one of us a dime. And I get to check in regularly with someone who has become a friend.

So, what tasks do you need to accomplish to move your practice further, faster? Who can you reach out to that is in the same boat?

Reading That Can Help

There are all sorts of books on accountability. But you have to pick one and read it … steps before the steps you need to take that will grow your practice. A weekly phone call or in-person check-up with your accountability partner is much simpler.

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Everyone has a different idea of what a successful practice is. The practice you want is personal because it is based on what “successful” means to you. I help practitioners focus on the strategies and tactics to build/grow their versions of successful practices. If you want some help with that, e-mail me at rod@rodburkert.com.