The Complete Guide to Accountability Coaching
If you're new to Accountability Coaching, you might have some questions, like: What does an accountability coach do? How can an accountability coach help you reach your goals? How can we help you make more money? Start good habits or break bad ones? Read on for my complete guide to accountability coaching! When I was in my early 20's, I used to have a life coach. One day I told him that I wanted to build a habit of daily meditation. I knew it would help me because I had really bad anxiety, and when I meditated it totally helped calm me down, so I had a feeling that if I built the daily habit of meditating, it would help me a lot. However, it's hard to find the time to meditate every day! I knew that I needed a little help. My coach told me to start by meditating for 10 minutes a day. He also told me to write 2 things down every day: 1. Did I meditate?
and 2. For how long?
Then I would show him the paper every week during our coaching session, and report my progress to him. It turned out that it was pretty easy for me right off the bat. 10 mintues a day was manageable, and the fact that my coach would be checking my paper made me do it every day. I don't think I skipped a day for that first month. It's human nature that when you tell someone you're going to do something, you tend to follow through. Us humans don't like to be seen as unreliable. This is the beauty of accountability, and it is the superpower that I've been using to achieve goals my whole life! The Association for Talent Development did a study that shows incredible results - You are 95% likely to achieve a goal if you have an accountability appointment commiting you to it!
Results from a study done by the Association for Talent Development It's been more than 10 years since I had that first life coach, and I still meditate - Every. Single. Day. This is the power of accountability.
You just need someone to hold you accountable in the beginning - while you're building a habit, starting a business, or going through a change or transition. The beginning is the toughest part. Starting to meditate took some willpower, but now that I've built the habit, it's easy! A friend can hold you accountable, but a coach is even better. Accountability coaches are trained to help you build habits, track your progress, reach your goals, and overcome setbacks. But what does an accountability coach do exactly? Well, one thing I do is I help people get crystal clear on their goal. Some people have the wrong goal at first (like a goal that their parents want them to do, more than they want it themselves). Some people have the wrong reason behind their goal (like, they want to start a business because they want to make lots of money, but they’re not passionate about anything except making money). So the first step is to get crystal clear on what exactly your goal is, and WHY you want that goal.
We also make sure before we get started that the goal is specific and measurable. You can think, “How will I know when I’ve reached my goal?” If the answer is unclear, then you need to make your goal more measurable. A really great tool for this is setting SMART goals.
For example, I want to get good at martial arts. But “getting good at martial arts” is not a measurable goal. How will I know when I’m “good at martial arts?”
I get knocked down a lot while practicing martial arts!
Instead, I set this goal for myself: “I will be able to hit my sparring partner, Javier, 3 times in a row.”
Javier is really, really good at martial arts - he’s so good that I have a hard time getting in even one punch. He’ll block me and punch me back before I’ve even had a chance to blink. He doesn’t go easy on me.
That’s why my goal is to get 3 hits in. It’s a skill that could come in handy in a self defense situation - Javier is a big, strong guy. If I can get 3 hits on a big, strong guy, then I’ll know I’m officially able to defend myself in a self defense situation.