In life, we sometimes need accountability buddies. Have you found that in “difficult-to-start” new projects, you sometimes need a person to help you stay accountable: an accountability buddy? I have! I’m not talking about a coach or a mental health professional. These are fine, but I mean a friend or acquaintance who also wants to exercise, write a book, finish a project, or work on something with similar themes as what you’re working on.
In the past few months, I’ve heard from a few friends, as well as work colleagues, all of whom have voiced that this would be helpful to them.
So, despite zoom gloom and distance, some of us have set up some “Just Write” sessions where we sit and write our own separate writing projects, while on the same “call”. We do this together online, helping keep the momentum and motivation, with some videoconferencing software running in the background on our screens. I’ve also found buddies to check-in with and make sure we’re both finding time in our busy lives to fit in walking or stretching routines, or other fitness and wellness goals.
We’ve met in the park with laptops and goals. All of us have found these were helpful meetings for keeping ourselves accountable to what we wanted to accomplish.
Recently a few older individuals have approached me about helping them write their life stories. I do help people in writing their memoirs, but I was struck that each of these people mentioned to me that they found it too hard to start this project on their own. My guess is they’re not alone. Getting an accountability buddy is something that may help you to move a goal forward. Focus and determination towards your goal will help you make progress, and you may need to find a way to help give yourselves a kickstart so that you can stay focused and determined.
A few friends of mine also wanted to learn something I was interested in, so we’ve been meeting monthly to keep ourselves accountable on our learning goals. So far, we’ve been making fun progress in learning how to play bridge, getting better at die-cutting and embossing techniques for cardmaking skills and more. These are not classes, they’re simply keeping ourselves accountable with friends in our goal getting and life enjoying pursuits, sometimes in person and sometimes virtually.
Where and how do you keep yourself accountable for things you want to do and may have a hard time starting on your own? Have you found yourself an accountability buddy or a good way to stay on track with your desired goals? Please share! Reach out to us on social @joyfestivalindustries or email [email protected]