Episode 71: Small Business Tip: How to use accountability when Setting Personal and Business Goals
If you find yourself always setting goals yet failing to stick with them, listen to today’s podcast as Fiona shares how she’s keeping herself accountable to the goals she has set this year and how you can too! She also invites everyone to join her 8-week program on Marketing For Your Small Business.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Accountability
How Fiona Stays Accountable
How To Stay Accountable
Conclusion
Resources mentioned in this episode
Episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to Episode 71 of My Daily Business Coach podcast today.
It is a quick tip episode - what means I'm giving you a quick tip, tool, or tactic to consider when you're running your small business or if you're thinking about starting a small business.
Now, today's topic actually ties in to what I'm about to say, which is to remind you that I have an online course Marketing For Your Small Business. And lots of lots of people have gone through that. And for the first time ever, I am helping people complete that course if they haven't. Or if they're buying it for the first time, you know, really get guidance to go through it and action everything because I think with online education, there is just such an abundance of it out there and many of us will buy things and not actually do them. And so definitely education hugely important. It's one of my big values. It's why I run this podcast.
But education for education sake doesn't really do anything to move you forward towards your goals. You have to actually implement the education. It's the execution of the education that is really where the gold lies. And so, the topic I'm talking about today ties into this, because the reason I put this 8-week online coaching program together is to hold people accountable to say, yep, if you're going to buy this course, you're actually also going to invest your time and money into completing the course. And not having it just sit there. I think it's a statistic around 80%, if not higher of people buy online courses and they never actually finish them.
So if you're keen to really understand how marketing works, get a proper strategy in place, stop the kind of scattergun ad hoc approach and really be planned out and impactful with your marketing, then definitely check out marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. You can also find it via the My Daily Business Coach website will link to all of that in the show notes.
The eight week online coaching program does start soon, kicks off February 16th. It's open to anyone in the world as long as you've got Internet access because it is all online. But yep, check that out. If you've got any questions, feel free to email us – hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com or you can send me a DM over on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
All right, let's get into today's quick episode.
All right, so the quick tip tool or tactic I'm talking about today is really centred around accountability. How are you staying accountable to whatever it is that you're planning to achieve in your business or in your life? You know, often I do think that our lives and our businesses are so intertwined that often the kind of the advice that I'm giving can be applied just as easily to our personal lives as to our professional lives.
So I just talked about, obviously, the eight week program, and that is one way that people will stay accountable and kind of put themselves forward and say, yep, I'm investing my time and investing my money into making sure that I show up and I do this thing that I say I'm going to do.
Now, what is accountability?
I really think that the quote by Bob Proctor sums it up well. So he said, “Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.”
Now, I'm just going to repeat that in case you're like, you know, I'm not dealing with kids or you've got this on in the background or you just need to concentrate. Really, really listen to this. “Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.”
Now, when I sat down to think about this episode, I thought, oh, you know, there's an area of my life that accountability is really working for me right now. It's not to do with business. And so I thought, well, do I bring it up or not bring it up and I'm going to take a deep breath and put it out there. It's something I don't talk about very much at all.
But yeah, in the last few years, I have gained quite a bit of weight. And it's something I'm not proud of. It's something that definitely weighs on my mind. Pardon the pun. And 2020. I was like, you know, this is going to be my year. I've got my book coming out, I'm going to New York, I'm going to do this, this and this. And I didn't I let a lot of kind of the health area side of things slide in terms of, you know, home schooling for seven months, locked in for seven months, all of that stuff. And I thought “No, 2021. This is the come on. It's been a few years now”. My whole life, I was pretty much the same weight until my late thirties and a whole lot of things happened. You know, I had sudden death of both my parents. I had a lot of stress trying to have a second child, all sorts of things that were coming up. And so, yeah, didn't put my health as a priority.
And it's kind of embarrassing to say all of that. Not embarrassing, but it's just, you know, it's vulnerable. It's putting myself out there. So, 2021 started and I was like, you know, “How can I stay accountable to these?” Because it's one thing to say, are you going to do something quite another to follow through with that? And even as somebody who does achieve a lot of their goals in business and I'm really proud of myself for that. Yeah, definitely. There's other areas of my life where I need to kind of kick the goals a little bit harder and put a bit more effort in.
And so this year I was like, yep. And even putting this out here now to, you know, thousands and thousands of you that are going to listen to this. It's vulnerable, but it's also keeping myself accountable. Another thing I did was I signed up for a 30-day challenge, you know, and I've been doing that. And it is hilarious. I do the true fit challenge with Michael from Married at First Sight. And it's awesome. I love it. I've done lots of challenges in my life. I used to run a lot of 10Ks. I was quite fit back in the day, did insanity right after I had my first child eight years ago. And I kind of like that stuff. I like where it is, you know, getting up every day, do something. Absolutely love it.
If you are a reality TV person and you like married at first sight, you will love it. So check out Tru Fit by Michael from Married at First Sight. So be it. Been doing the 30 day challenge. But the other big thing, and this was really took some courage, was that I was in this group on Facebook and they have thousands and thousands of people from around the world. And I saw this person post and she posted about kind of her circumstance. And I thought, you know what, we have a lot in common. I am just going to bite the bullet and I'm going to direct message her and I'm going to ask if she wants to be my accountability buddy. No sort of payment or anything.
But just, hey, what would this look like? What could it look like? I've never done anything like that before in my life. So I reached out to her and said, hey, and she's in the UK and we just started connecting on WhatsApp. And literally, I just think it's been one of the best things I've done in terms of staying accountable and having this person just gets you there exactly where you are. And literally we message a few times a day, every single day. You know, if I can't be bothered going for a walk, she's like now going for my workout. It's freezing cold here. I'm like, okay, me too. You know, I've got it. I couldn't be bothered doing something one day. And, you know, she really helped me likewise, if we see each other kind of falling off the wagon or whatever we like, now get back up. Come on.
And we've already made the commitment that we're not just doing this for a certain amount of time. We're going to do this for years. So once we both get healthier and we're feeling, you know, strong and all of that, because it's not just about the weight, it's about feeling strong in my mind. I've lost the strength that I used to have, the fitness and that does impact your business, so it does impact, you know, how much you want to show up, how much you want to get photos taken, all of that stuff.
Anyway, my point is I bit the bullet. I contacted this woman and now I'm staying accountable to these health goals by reaching out to this person every single day. And likewise, she's reaching out to me as well. And she's going through things so, you know, shout out to Sarah. Thank you. But that is one way of staying accountable.
It's like, OK, I'm going to put in the time to stick to what I want to do, which goes back to the Bob Proctor quote of “Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.”
So in your business, what are you doing? A lot of people will seek out a business coach to help them stay accountable. Other people might do something like my eight-week program where they're turning up with other people in the same boat and, you know, potentially making lifelong friends that they can take out outside of the eight week program and, you know, collaborate or work together or just be friends.
In my group coaching program, there's a lot of accountability. And I actually partner people up so that not only do they have me and the rest of the group holding them accountable, they also have this buddy that they work on, you know, various activities where they can really make that relationship what they want. And in last year's group coaching or the year before, a lot of those people have actually gone out and become good friends. And they made up quite regularly. Two of them are actually working on a few projects together.
So it's awesome to have goals, to really set goals. But if you're working by yourself and predominantly a lot of people, particularly starting businesses, are working by themselves or even at the top, maybe they've got a whole team, but they still feel quite solo in terms of, you know, managing that team, being responsible for all the decisions. And so they'll seek out a business coach or group coaching program or mastermind or something else. And so I guess my tip for you today is really to consider the goals that you have for 2021, be they personal or business, and really think about how am I going to get that accountability?
Is it all I really need to get my marketing underway. I'm going to sign up for this eight week online program. I'm going to make sure that I finish that course. Is it I'm actually going to cultivate a crew around me of good business friends, and I'm going to really make it formal in that I meet with them every single month, whether it's on Zoom or in person if you're lucky enough to do that, am I going to sign up to a mastermind? Am I going to go back to uni as one of my good friends is right now doing her MBA? You know, that's a huge time and financial commitment, but it's a commitment that she's signed up to. She's got a study group that keeps her accountable.
So really think about accountability in terms of your goals and come back to that quote again, “Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.” You can be super, super committed to your goals. And yet if you're not staying accountable to yourself and sometimes that does require you to invest your time or your money, then after we can let those goals fall to the wayside.
So that is the tip - Really consider how you're staying accountable with those goals. What could you do to formalise that accountability? And it doesn't need to be a huge payment. It could be, like I said, just reaching out to friends who are in business and creating your own sort of peer-to-peer mastermind or your own kind of group that gets together each month or more frequently.
That is it. Really, really. Consider your accountability.
Now, I do feel a little vulnerable. I shared all of that. But I also know that I'm putting it out there. I'm holding myself accountable. And I think that is exactly what we need to do in business and in life to hit the goals that we have.
So that is it for today's Quick Tip episode. I hope you found it useful. If you have, I would love it if you could leave a quick review or even just hit the stars in your Apple podcast app or anywhere else that you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
