by Glen Keene, JD, CPC
Attorney, certified professional coach and Internet TV show host Glen Keene gives practical tips to businesses and to future entrepreneurs to Enlighten, Engage and Empower to achieve success and full potential.
Setting goals is easy. All that’s required is thinking about your dreams, desires and wants. What do you want your life to look like in a year, five years or ten years? How successful do you want to be and what form does that success take, what does it look like? It doesn’t matter if you goals are related to business, financial, family or recreation the process for achieving them is the same. Reaching your goals is easier when you have a clear vision of what they are and you maintain a consistent focus on what you want.
Many, if not most of us, start the year by setting goals. We call them New Years resolutions. Every year we promise ourselves that we are going to do it this year. We ARE going to ‘€˜fill in the blank’. If you ask those who set New Years resolutions most will tell you that they did not achieve them. What’s the reason for that? Usually it’s because people lose their motivation, they lose faith in their ability to get what they want. They lose focus and clarity. The vision fades and the goals seemingly float out of reach. We revert to our old habits and return to our shrunken comfort zone.
This will happen to you over and over again usually because the resolutions, the goals, were not written down and you did not hold yourself accountable.
Writing it down, whether you use those antiquated devises called pen and writing pad or input the data into your computer’s word processing program, can help you clarify your goals and vision and your plan for achieving them. Referring to your written goals on a regular basis, at least once a week, will help you maintain your focus and give you a greater chance of reaching them. But, that’s not enough. You can have greater success in any area of your life if you make yourself accountable to someone. Being held to account makes you focus on where you want your life to go, where you want to be in one, five, ten years.
Having an accountability partner is a proven method for success. An accountability partner is someone you speak to on a regular basis, once a day for 5 to 10 minutes or once a week for half an hour or any amount of time you and your partner agree to. The point is to commit to make an ongoing consistent connection with another person to whom you have to explain what steps you’ve taken towards your goals. Your chances of success will increase exponentially if you use an accountability partner as part of your success strategy.
The reason it works is because no one wants to report that they didn’t do what they promised they would. When you’ve taken the steps you promised yourself and your partner you would take you’ll look forward to the calls. You will joyfully report your successful movement forward. And, success feeds on success. The more you have the more you’ll want and the easier it will be to get where you want to go.
To find an accountability partner think about the people you know who share your desire for success, have similar goals and dreams. Speak to them and ask, ask, ask. The best accountability partners are ones who share a vision similar to yours and understand the value of being accountable to another.
Once you’ve found your partner set the parameters of the meetings. Will they be over the phone or face to face? Will they be daily for 5 minutes? Maybe you’ll get to together for lunch once a week for an hour. Whatever time frame and method of communication you decide on is up to your taste and convenience. Make sure to give time for both of you to talk. The idea is to be accountable to each other. The first meeting should center on the set up and sharing your goals and vision. Each conversation should include the steps each of you have taken towards you goals, what steps you didn’t take and why and what steps you intend to take before the next conversation.
Take note of what steps your partner will take and make sure to hold them accountable in the next conversation. After a few accountability sessions you should notice an improvement in maintaining your focus and clarity. I can attest to this personally. I now have two accountability partners.
I speak with my friend and fellow success coach Joe Cohen once a week. During our phone call we spend a few minutes discussing routine day to day matters, our families and the like, then we get down to business. We give each other 10 to 15 minutes to review our journal entries. We provide each other with encouragement, feedback and brain storming. At the end of the call we lay out our actions for the coming week and confirm the day and time for the next call.
My second accountability partner is Andy, a young person who belongs to the Jack Canfield Inner Circle Club as I do. We recently started a daily 5 to 10 minute call. When someone reaches out to you, respects what you have to say and accepts your positive feedback it is a very satisfying feeling. The results you achieve when you make the effort to reach out will speak for themselves.
Glen Keene’s Spotlight on Success’ is streamed live every Wednesday at 6:30p from RocklandWorldRadio.com. Glen’s guest on Wednesday June 27 is an Attorney Robert Pitkofsky, a community leader and volunteer and a fellow graduate of the Leadership Rockland program.
Email glen@attorneykeene.com, visit GlenKeene.com or call 845-445-2411 with questions about Glen’s column, his show or his practice at 99 Main Street in Nyack, NY.
No legal advice is intended or implied herein.
