A Definition From AI
If you ask AI what an Accountability Partner is, here’s what you’ll get:
An accountability partner is a person who supports another in achieving personal, academic, or professional goals by providing regular check-ins, encouragement, and honest feedback. This relationship is built on mutual trust and commitment, where each individual holds the other accountable for completing specific tasks or maintaining consistent behavior. The concept is widely used in various areas such as health, education, business, and personal development.
(Try it yourself here or here.)
If AI ever develops the human capacity to get defensive, angry and vindictive when criticized, I may regret having accused AI of being “narrow-minded,” but here goes:
In my opinion, AI’s definition of an Accountability Partner is way, way too narrow. In fact, it’s so narrow that if you take it literally, you’ll be discouraged from using your imagination to capture the huge potential benefits of what I believe is the actual powerful essence of the Accountability Partner concept.
Defining “Accountabilty Partner” more broadly
Please allow me to redefine an Accountability Partner more broadly as “Any being who increases the likelihood that you’ll follow through on a chosen good intention.”
My Accountability Partner for getting daily exercise is named Gus. Gus isn’t even a person. He’s an effusive, lovable Bernedoodle who generously supports my intention to keep moving whether I feel like it or not. I take him for walks two or three times a day because I adore him and want him to be healthy, comfortable and happy. I follow through on my intention to walk because I’m motivated enough to walk for Gus even though I’m not motivated enough to consistently walk for myself.
My dog Gus doesn’t know he’s my AP, and we certainly don’t have a formal agreement. Yet I couldn’t imagine having a better AP for my “Get exercise” intention.
Years ago, Pete Greider, coauthor of “Following Through,” and his wife discovered how effective a canine Accountability Partner can be. Here’s an excerpt from “Following Through” that tells their story:
Pete and Karen had been struggling for some time to find a way to follow through on their intention to exercise regularly. They had tried everything. Pete joined a health club, but within just a few weeks, he stopped going. Karen tried getting up early to run before work, but within a few days, the only exercise she was getting was from hitting the snooze button on her alarm clock. They went out and bought an expensive piece of exercise equipment. They even put it right smack dab in the middle of their bedroom so that they couldn’t possibly forget about it. Within a month, the exercise machine had become an extremely expensive clothes hanger.
Then one night, after lamenting about how they just didn’t seem to have enough willpower to stick with anything, Pete and Karen stumbled upon the perfect solution.
“Let’s get a dog!” they decided.
Thanks to one easy action—adopting an adorable puppy named Casey from the animal shelter—Pete and Karen now get up early and walk every single day. They do it even when they’d rather sleep, even when the weather stinks, even when getting out of bed and going for a walk is the last thing in the world they feel like doing.
Pete and Karen don’t get regular exercise because it’s healthy. They get it because, now that they have Casey, getting up and getting exercise feels like a necessity rather than just a good—but optional—idea. They get up and go for a walk because Casey whines to go out, because they don’t want him to start barking and wake up the neighbors, because they don’t want him to make a mess on the carpet, and because they love Casey and don’t want him to be uncomfortable.
So, for all the “wrong” reasons, Pete and Karen are finally doing what they were unable to do for all the “right” reasons. They’re finally getting the job done because they discovered leverage and stopped relying on willpower alone.
Accountability Partners are everywhere if you look for them
My 10 year-old granddaughter is an awesome Accountability Partner simply because I know she’ll never ever neglect to hold me accountable for keeping a promise I make. So, I make a point of making promises to her knowing that although I’m capable of disappointing myself, there’s no way I would ever allow myself to disappoint her.
So, it’s best to think of an Accountability Partner broadly as a follow through asset — as a being who can increase your ability to follow through on a chosen intention. And whenever you adopt an intention, it’s wise to identify and make use of any and all Accountability Partners that can potentially help.
How an Accountability Partner can help you follow through
The right Accountability Partner can help you follow through by:
- Helping you stay focused on your intention.
- Giving you greater motivational horsepower by enlisting new motives that support your intention. For example, instead of relying solely on your motivation to stay healthy, you might make a public promise that enlists your motivation to avoid disappointing a person who you dread disappointing.
Remember:
- An Accountability Partner doesn’t have to agree to be your Accountability Partner or even know that he or she is your Accountability Partner.
- Be open and creative when looking for potential Accountability Partners. For example, a niece or nephew or grandchild who you’re eager to please and who won’t let you get away with breaking your promise might be the perfect Accountability Partner for a given intention.
- You can – and should – have different Accountability Partners for different intentions.
In Closing…
Although I wrote this post to encourage you to think much more broadly and creatively about Accountability Partners so you can do a better job of identifying and making use of potentially valuable follow through assets that others typically overlook, I certainly don’t mean to discourage you from pursuing opportunities to benefit from more conventionally and narrowly-defined Accountability Partners of the formal kind that AI describes.
To the contrary, whenever you have the chance to form a relationship with a human you trust who is willing and able to help make sure that you actually do what you intend to do, by all means, go for it. If you’re not convinced it will help, just ask the many cardiac rehab patients who have achieved excellent results by serving as each other’s Accountability Partners.
By the way, if you’re an enrollee in our Follow Through Master Program and have completed the Follow Through Strategies course, you may have recognized that it’s the Willpower Leveraging and Creating Compelling Reasons strategies that make Gus and Casey effective Accountability Partners.