Writing a Simple Life Plan, Part 4

We’ve been writing a life plan this week. I hope you are following along and writing your own plan. I have tried to keep it simple, hoping that will improve your chances of following through to completion. If you’ve missed any of them, be sure and read

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Today we add another step in the process.

Accountability

If you want to see your goals become reality, you need to build a system of accountability into your plan. If you are confident you want to complete the detailed goals you’ve set, and you believe the action plan you have written will help you meet them, then you must find a way to hold yourself accountable to completing the action steps.

You’ll need to add accountability you are comfortable with and makes sense for your goals and action steps, but here are some suggestions to consider:

• Put action items on your calendar for the next year. I have some items that repeat throughout the year.
• Print your plan and share it with someone — give them permission to check in with you throughout the year.
• Find a partner — this is especially helpful when exercising or in weight loss. (This is what makes Weight Watchers successful.)
• Use an application/program to schedule tasks and set alarms to remind you of your action steps. There are plenty of these, including the calendar app on your phone.
• Comment on this post with your plan, or post it on your own blog — there’s something about going public that builds a stronger desire for completion

The key here is to build a system, which will hold you accountable to completion of your goals. As you repeat the actions and see results towards your goals, you will develop habits in these areas and in the process of doing so will find you achieve more of your goals.

There is one more step to this process. I’ll share it in the next post.

Can you guess what it is?