Accountability Goals, or, How I'm Starting My Year The Way I Want To
My therapist asked me in our last session how I would be spending my free time if money and time were no object. That was easy for me to come up with right away: I said I wanted to dedicate more time to writing, reading, and language learning (specifically Spanish at this time, though that will change as I improve in the language). Then he asked me to come up with accountability goals. I hadn’t really heard this term before, but it was his phrasing for me coming up with set amounts of time I would dedicate to each of these endeavors each day and at what times of the day. I am an early riser, so I determined that dedicating 15 minutes each to reading and writing was going to be something I could accomplish daily right after waking up, coffee on hand (I was just talking with my husband and said aloud that I thought that coffee and books were as “iconic” of a duo as peanut butter and jelly). I had already been dedicating my 30 minute lunch break to watching and listening to videos on the site Dreaming Spanish and either using Duolingo or Language Transfer, so I determined that this would stay as a goal I voiced and held to that time block. And just like that, we gave more power to my goals.
Of course, my therapist said there wouldn’t be any kind of repercussions if I don’t meet these goals every single day and that we would just check in about them at our sessions. The first day that I wrote for 15 minutes, I got in my head a few times and wrote much less than I probably could have. This is what accountability is all about though: “being seen in moments of success and struggle makes our goal feel real” (Outward Bound). It’s not enough to always be good or perfect or something, but to be trying. It’s when we get frustrated at our own lack of progress that so many of us give up (myself included, in so many things).
Part of why this has already worked so well is that I have made the choices about what the goal looks like and when I do it. Accountability “fosters a sense of ownership and commitment toward achieving desired outcomes and reinforces the importance of following through on promises made” (How to Use). Again, no one is going to punish me if I don’t complete these goals to the letter every day, but it is a promise I made to my therapist and I’ve told my husband, who feels like another accountability buddy in my corner. But really, more importantly, I’ve made those promises to myself and I don’t plan on letting myself down.
It’s only been a few days since I implemented the accountability goals, but I already see it having a major impact on my days. I start off my mornings by grabbing my coffee, using a prompt generator to come up with a writing prompt that I would never have thought of, then writing to a timer. I then reset the timer and read. It’s a simple, effective way to begin my day, and it keeps me off my phone (except to set and disable the timer). I’m much more awake than I was when my phone was the first thing I grabbed and got hooked on, so I am quicker to start my day and get my necessary tasks out of the way so that I can enjoy a little more downtime before my obligations for the day. Being intentional about listening to my language learning videos at lunch has been helpful as well. I also always know that if I end up having lunch with a coworker, friend, or my spouse, I can commit to listening to my target 30 minutes later in the evening.
I’m really excited to see where these accountability goals take me, and how I can use them to meet different goals in the future, in ways I can’t even imagine yet. If you’re feeling stuck in how you’re thinking about or trying to meet your own goals, I recommend looking into this method. Using a peer as an accountability partner is just as effective, if not more so. If you’re making this sort of commitment as well, I wish us all the best of luck as we move onward and upward!
Sources:
The Power of Accountability in Reaching Your Goals. Outward Bound Blog. https://outwardbound.org/blog/the-power-of-accountability-in-reaching-your-goals/
How to Use Accountability to Define & Reach Your Goals. Hive. https://hive.com/blog/goal-accountability/