3 Strategies to Hold Yourself Accountable

At the beginning of your career, your eyes are bright and your tail is thick. You seek help and absorb the wisdom of mentors and managers. But once you've experienced success, you'll find yourself afraid to look down. After all, when you think about everything you might lose, being at the top is daunting. At this point, asking for help starts to feel less like a learning experience and more like proof that you might not be the right fit for the job at hand.

The more successful you are, the less responsibility you have. It's not that you're irresponsible to anyone; it's that your goals become more subjective: to lead a legal team, to manage a company, to manage a department. So, regardless of the outcome, you can say, "Okay, I did my best." Meanwhile, your calendar starts to fill up with things you "have to do, not things you should do." As a result, you find yourself in meetings that you don't fully believe in adding value and go all out to free up time for tasks and projects that really make a difference.

This combination of reduced accountability, a long to-do list, and fear of seeming incompetence often leads to career stagnation. When we stop developing individual skills, we stop growing. It's that simple. To break this success trap, you have to establish a higher level of accountability so that your actions don't just depend on willpower.

Here are three ways to get started.

1. Recruit accountability partners.

A few years ago, I came up with an idea of what I needed to do to grow my keynote business: I needed to practice a few speeches before the presentation, and I needed to make better constructive criticism of the content. But something – fear or laziness – prevents me from doing these things. I realized I needed more accountability than I could provide.

The study illustrates my situation. A study by the Talent Development Association found that your likelihood of achieving your goals depends on being specific and responsible. When you decide to pursue a goal, your chances of success are between 10% and 25%. By sharing your goals with the people you care about, you increase the odds to 65%. When you ask that person to check in with you on a regular basis, your odds of success soar to 95%.

Pretty incredible, right? I decided to test the research and hired a friend as my "boss" to take charge of the big tasks I wanted to accomplish. I know it sounds silly, but even though I knew my pretend boss didn't have the authority to fire me, I still greatly improved my game. After all, I didn't want him to disappoint me. Before the lecture, I would practice speaking with him for a few weeks. He helped me fine-tune any confusing or ineffective aspects of each talk. On the morning of the presentation, we will have one last look on Zoom. As a result of the increase in practice, I began to receive more referrals and my business grew rapidly.

2. Publicly announce and share goals.

You don't necessarily need to "hire" your boss to find an accountability partner, but you do need to keep reminding you of your commitments.

According to a study on New Year's resolutions, people who achieve goals often use a technique called stimulus control, in which they often remind themselves of those goals.

To achieve this, I tell as many people as possible about the grand, lofty goals I have set for myself. For example, last year I set a goal of doing the first pull-up. More than one: I want to work as many as 20 in a row. For me to keep going, it takes a lot of stimulation control. So I combined this challenge with another big goal: raising $20,000 for the nonprofit Big Brothers Big Sisters. I swear to do a pull-up for every $5 I donate. Whenever someone contributes to my campaign, I do the appropriate number of pull-ups and post updates on my social media accounts. Not only did these posts help me raise additional money, but my fundraising challenges also became a topic of conversation when I met friends and acquaintances. This level of accountability prompted me to work harder than I did on willpower alone, and I ended up raising $26,000.

It's hard to underestimate the power of community support. For example, I also want to read a new marketing book to learn some new skills, but I'm worried about finding the time to complete it and take action on ideas. So I created a mini-book club and found a couple of motivated people who wanted to join. Research shows that when you collaborate with others and create a group for your goals, it significantly increases your interest, resilience, and likelihood of success.

3. Change your environment.

Pursuing long-term goals, such as writing a book, getting a promotion, or changing your life, is a complex, multi-step process. In challenging times, it's easy to lose momentum, especially if you bet on willpower to get through it all. Most people who consistently achieve their goals say they don't just do it by relying on their own self-control; they change the environment.

In fact, a study by Florida State University found that participants who reported self-control in spades also took steps to minimize the temptations that might derail them. Although these people may have a stronger will than average, they succeed because they translate their self-control into an environment of choice that helps them avoid distractions and impulses that hinder their goals. In other words, instead of being willing to avoid scrolling Instagram, they left their phones at home or blocked apps in their browsers. The best anti-seductress spend less time fighting impulses than others because they optimize the environment and free them from the distractions of derailment.

Instead of clumsily achieving your goals, step into a new environment in which achieving those goals is supportive and expected. For example, when you are under a legally binding contract, you have a vested interest in maintaining steady progress.

I started to develop contractual obligations for the really big goals I wanted to achieve. For example, when I first made a podcast, it was difficult for me to publish episodes every week. I would find myself posting them later in the week and later in the week. So I found a sponsor to support the show for 52 weeks. Now that I have this responsibility, this task has taken on a whole new meaning in my life. I know I'm not going to miss the deadline. Similarly, while writing the book, I learned that if I got a co-author involved and I made a contractual commitment to him about deadlines and content, I was more likely to achieve my publishing goals than to lose momentum halfway through.

If you find yourself treading water in your career after a quick promotion, you're not alone. It's not because you lack willpower, and it's certainly not because you don't have the ability to grow. The root cause of career stagnation is often the underlying fear that comes with success. Don't try to fight alone. Ask others again for help to increase your accountability and unleash your full potential.