Collaboration and Accountability – the Secret to Success

There are some keys I gave in the last two episodes for keeping your New Year resolution (or reaching any goal):

• • Choosing just ONE goal for accomplishment this year. Decide the most important thing you are going to change.
  • Creating a scoreboard to chart your progress. This should be a physical literal object.  Use your Apple watch, your smart phone, or a paper you tape on your wall.  You must track your progress in real time or as close to real time as possible.

The REAL secret to success, though, is collaboration and accountability.  Add these into your life to propel you toward your goal.  I want to impress upon you the importance of this as the next step.  Accomplish something big this year – hit that particular goal.  In this episode find out how to collaborate and be accountable.

Back to the example in the previous episode – going to your child’s high school basketball game.  Engaging in the game is difficult without a scoreboard.  But just as depressing is when there are no spectators in the stands!  The kids feel like no one cares whether they win or lose.  The same is true in life!  You need other people involved, watching your scoreboard.

I’m focused right now on health improvement.  My wife, Christina, could tell you I probably show her my Apple watch progress three times a day.  I want her to know, even if she is getting sick of hearing it.  If she sees me wimping out on going to the gym, she holds me accountable,  “I thought you were going to the gym three times a week.  What’s going on?”  or “Why are you eating that big piece of chocolate cake?”  That’s accountability.

When other people know about your goals, that will pressure you to perform.  Peer pressure still works!  The reason you don’t feel peer pressure is probably because your peers have no idea what’s important to you.  You need people in your life who will hold you accountable.  When you fall short or start to slide back on your goals, these people will be aware of it.  That sense of urgency is necessary for you to accomplish your goals.

Unfortunately, people often confuse networking and socializing with collaboration and accountability.  There is a massive difference!  Nothing is wrong with networking and socializing.  But those will not necessarily give you the urgency and support you need to pursue goals.  Collaborating would be a group of sales people coming together with an idea such as creating a shared data base or google docs spread sheet.  The purpose would be to track how many prospects each person goes into every day.  Or a group of people might agree, “Let’s all get together this year and focus on our health.  Let’s do this and this and this.”  Collaborating is a great way to accomplish an objective.  You can go to your like-minded group and say, “This is my scoreboard.  I just fell short.  What are we going to do about this?”

I hope these three short episodes will help you as you start the new year.  Maybe you made fifty different New Year resolutions.  I challenge you to get that down to ONE.  Put it on a scoreboard and get people to collaborate with you and hold you accountable.  You need people who know what your scoreboard is and what the score is.  They can challenge you to make sure you are winning – that you’re accomplishing your objective.

Have an awesome 2018!

Read previous article here:  http://www.ccsalespro.com/where-is-your-scoreboard/  Where is Your Scoreboard

Read next article here:  http://www.ccsalespro.com/two-predictions-2018-part-1/  My Two Predictions for 2018 – Part 1