Start Your Day with the End in Mind
If you want ultimate freedom in your life, finances, and time we must learn personal accountability for ourselves if you expect to be your own boss.
This article is about how important personal accountability is and how to personally accountable as it relates to a successful side-hustle, but this skill is needed for so many things, like sticking to a healthy lifestyle, a desire to get to some goal in your life, etc.
How to Cultivate Personal Accountability
Personal accountability starts with the personal part. We need personal reasons why we want to do ‘the thing’. If we don’t have a why that is really connected to us personally, the thing is going to seem like work and not get done. We can build our personal accountability through motivation as well as willpower and these little tricks that keep us on task:
1. Remind yourself of your goals daily. This can be done by writing them down daily in a “wins” journal. I’m a fan of paper and pen for this one. Having a spot where you write down your big goal, the daily goals and priorities that support the larger picture.
2. In the ‘wins’ journal I am a proponent of having an entry at the end of the day with the things you actually accomplished. Asking yourself this question will make you work with intention during the day as well as lead to motivation when you see the wins you have for each day.
3. Make your big goal personal. Having enough of a why you are doing a thing that that gets you to do the work even on days you feel accomplished, sad, and, yes, even exhausted.
4. Planning ahead is another must. Planning ahead makes decision-making in the moment easier. Without needing to figure out your next move or decide if you even want to do anything, willpower is not tested and your personal accountability easier to keep in those moments
5. Create a routine of habits that support your current goals. Personal accountability is how you begin your habits that ultimately build your routine. My least productive week taught me that personal accountability is easier with a routine, and a routine will hold up even when personal accountability wavers.
6. Have internal motivation for the goals. Willpower and personal accountability do waver. We are strong one minute and lax the next but when we are internally motivated, meaning it is something we really want then when routines waver, our internal motivations can strengthen our resolve and personal accountability.
7. Log your time. Logging your time keeps you on track with your tasks as well as allows you to see where time is wasted each day.
“If you want to stop starting over with day one, stop quitting” — Author
The lessons I learned from my least productive week since I began this journey has led me to these action steps:
- Personal accountability takes time to implement every time. Do not discount that you have this as a given when you start to work on a side hustle. A side hustle to full time income is not easy work and we need accountability for ourselves to get the tasks done to reach our goals. Use the tools above to cultivate personal accountability.
- Start your day with a why that matters, work towards accomplishing something specific, and end your day that confirms your positive choices that day. Starting your day with the end in mind will give you the desire to be able to answer the question with the things you accomplished that day.
- Build a routine. You must start habit by habit, but doing so goes so far whether you’re on a good streak or a sluff-off-slide. A routine works for us when we keep it and also when we don’t. Let your routine work for you when personal accountability fails. Don’t let one day off, unplanned, turn into two.
My ability to build a successful routine was my catalyst leading to a great week and also what got me out of the slide I was on. Personal accountability will grow stronger the longer I keep up with the routine. Sitting in my “work area” and starting with my routine was not initially easy, but day one never is. The personal accountability you cultivate with the outlined steps will help.
If you haven’t read Part 1, check it out here.
