What are the benefits of accountability?

Accountability benefits you in several ways as you pursue a goal. You might think being accountable to someone is only for those who are struggling with a particular issue. But working with an accountability partner is a key to success for anyone who wants to change and grow.

Here are five benefits of accountability that you could start realizing today:

1. Commitment

Being accountable increases your dedication to complete your goal. When you know your trusted partner will talk to you about your status, you are more motivated to take action to follow through on your plan.

Accountability helps you grow in self-control as you know you will have to answer for your choices and actions.

Accountability helps you grow in self-control as you know you will have to answer for your choices and actions. Improve your mastery of the knowledge and skills necessary to attain your desired outcome. Be responsible and take ownership of your pursuit of success.

2. Clarity

Define your goal and craft your plan—these activities help you clarify what you want, why you want it, and how you are going to get it. Demonstrate your responsibility by writing down the steps you will take to pursue your goal. What are the things you must be, do, or have to succeed?

With an accountability partner, you can review these plans together to get feedback on their effectiveness. Evaluating your goal and plan helps them be as well-defined as possible so you and your trusted partner can monitor your progress. Eliminate excuses and remove distractions so you can focus on what you must do today to accomplish your goal.

3. Creativity

Sometimes you hit a roadblock and cannot discern the best way forward. Your accountability partner can serve as a sounding board to help you analyze your obstacle and suggest creative solutions.

You will identify and correct errors more quickly with another person’s perspective.

A key benefit of accountability is that you will identify and correct errors more quickly with another person’s perspective. Receive encouraging as well as challenging feedback on your choices and actions. You can also learn from other people who have successfully undertaken similar goals.

4. Competence

Improve your competency by talking with your accountability partner about your performance. When you know (or even think) someone is watching you, you tend to work better.

Also, by measuring your results, you can watch your success step by step. Set milestones and deadlines to track progress from where you started to your desired outcome. Accomplish your plan faster by working with an accountability partner.

5. Celebration

You are more likely to accomplish your goal when you have someone who will hold you accountable for your choices and actions. You have a cheerleader (and sometimes a coach) who will celebrate your successes along the way and help you recover from setbacks.

Accountability accelerates your performance.

When you connect with a coach (one-on-one or in a program) you can work the kinks out of your plan, develop a sure-fire winning strategy and execute with confidence, knowing you have been guided by the best to achieve your goals.

Accountability helps you measure your success and progress.

A good coach will help you define what success looks like and set milestones to measure your progress along the way. You can easily track how close you are to reaching your goals.

Accountability keeps you engaged.

There are things that will come up that will distract you from your goals and take you off course. Even when you’re bored, distracted or tired, knowing that you have to answer for your progress will keep you going to the finish line.

Accountability will keep you responsible.

When you are working with someone who pushes you to make massive changes in a short amount of time and give a report…you finally realize that you are ultimately responsible for how much progress you make every day. Accounting for your actions weekly will cause you to take a good look at yourself, start eliminating the excuses and start making deliberate actions that bring about your intended success.

It creates firm deadlines for important tasks

Planning is an essential part of the goal-setting process. Without prior planning, any task is significantly more difficult to achieve.

One essential component of planning is setting firm (and public) deadlines. Sure, keeping a private timeline in your head can work, but there is a better chance you’ll follow through if you tell others about your timeline and commit to reporting back on your progress. It highly increases the likelihood for you to finish projects by specific deadlines.

Start your accountability today

Creating and establishing accountability doesn’t have to be a long drawn out process. In fact, here are three simple steps to start benefiting from accountability.

1. Find a partner or peer to keep you accountable. Tell your partner or peer what you intend to do so you can be accountable. Request for them to ask you about your progress and be sure to give straightforward answers—with no excuses.
2. Become personally accountable for your success. Personal responsibility will shift your perspective and empower you to eradicate the excuses that may be holding you up. It’s the inner part of the game while accountability towards others itself is the external driver. Both components are needed.
3. Get a mentor or a coach. With a mentor or coach, you will accelerate your success, and achieve much more than you ever can on your own. At some point, you must consider getting this caliber of assistance to truly blast past the mediocrity and into high-level achievement.