I like many people benefit greatly from having someone else hold me accountable for staying on task. I experienced this first hand when I had my business coach for 2 months. The guidance and accountability increased my productivity beyond measure.
What if you want to find someone out there like you who is motivated by their own goals and ambitions? It is an accountability partner that helps you achieve what you set out to achieve and increase your motivation.
I have had 3 accountability partners in the past, each has failed for their own reasons. They worked for periods of time but I found myself doing a lot of the sharing and engagement to keep it going and I found it hard to be honest with them about what I expected from them because they were good friends with good intentions.
This time around I have reached out to someone completely unknown to me before our initial contact and I have learned some important things along the way
Before you even start looking for an accountability partner you need to work out what you are looking for in an accountability partner and what you expect from them. If you are searching for a partner have some guidelines written out before you start looking.
When I refer to guidelines I am referring to how many times a week you want to arrange meetings, what times those meetings will be and what will be covered during these accountability sessions. I am still experimenting with this myself and I look forward to reporting more on this topic.
Let’s look at the reason you visited this post in the first place. Where can you find an accountability buddy?
5 Places To Find an Accountability Buddy
1. Business Groups on Facebook
This is a fantastic place to start. Most very successful business marketers have a Facebook group where their community gathers and shares ideas. I have seen countless posts of people looking for mastermind groups (which is an accountability group). All these groups have great intentions but I see the posts are usually consistent for a week and no-one posts in the group again.
The accountability partner I approached just recently actually hosted one of these groups. The group is still there but there is no conversation happening in there. I actually approached the person who started the group – having started my own I knew I wanted to work with the person who took that initiative.
He was happy to give the accountability buddy system a shot and we are getting things kicked off on September 1st 2015. I am writing up a document tonight with expectations and commitments and we have our first Skype meeting tomorrow to bounce some ideas around.
Searching in a Facebook group does two things; it lets you reach out to people that have a similar interest as you to begin with and it allows you to straight away specify a location which is important. It is very hard to have an accountability partner on the other side of the world, even though I know some people who do.
2. MeetUp.com
I got this tip from Daniel Pinne who runs a mastermind group of his own. I wanted to pick his brain about the methods he used to get his group together, how he keeps it running and what kind of commitments it takes to keep it going.
I was let with no illusion that it is not just some magic group where magical things happen. The mastermind groups work because everyone in there is willing to put in the work.
Daniel put out a MeetUp event on MeetUp.com for anyone interested in joining a mastermind group and he managed to find the 4 people who are in his group today. This is a great start to put it out there and get in contact with some new people who are also looking for similar things.
3. Co-Working Hubs
Co-Working Hubs are popping up everywhere! A Co-Working Hub is like a library for business people. You pay a membership fee and you go to the hub to do your work surrounded by other people who are working. This is a fantastic place to meet like-minded people.
Many of the hubs will let you put a notice on the wall that you are looking for an accountability partner but once you get to know a few regulars in the building you will quickly start to get a gut feel of who would make a good accountability partner.
4. Business Forums
There are forums on nearly every topic and every hobby. It can be as simple as putting out a post and waiting for some bites. If you are looking for a partner locally I suggest posting in a local forum rather than a worldwide forum. My experience has been that you don’t get a lot of replies on worldwide forums if you are looking to connect with someone from a specific location.
If you are Australian Flying Solo Forums are a great business forum to start on.
5. Networking Events
Networking events can overlap with MeetUp and the networking events are often found through that method. They can be advertised in many places, directed on websites or huge conventions. These are perfect places to network and meet new people. The likelihood of finding the perfect accountability partner is limited. Most people are conventions are there for a specific goal of to interact with a particular interest group.
There have been some success stories of finding you accountability partner at a networking event it just seems to be running into the right person at the right time.
Do you have an accountability partner? If so where did you find them?
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