The Value of an Accountability Coach by Anne M. Bachrach

"If you can dream it, you can do it." -- Walt Disney

It is estimated that up to ninety percent of our behavior is habitual. That means that up to ninety

percent of what you do, you do the same day in and day out - often without conscious thought.

This may not seem like a concern, until you consider what percentage of your behavior is

sabotaging your success. While you may be aware of some of your bad habits, it takes the

guidance of an accountability coach to identify and bring awareness to all of the habits that are

confining you to your current reality.

Most of us have a list of bad habits we keep telling ourselves we will change, but never follow

through on making them. Think about all the New Year’s resolutions that never happened. And

that’s easy to do when you have no one to hold you accountable for the things you say you are

going to do or would like to do. Would you be more apt to make the commitment to change bad

habits if someone was holding you accountable? It’s not exactly comfortable to try to make

excuses to someone else and you are more likely to follow through on things you say you’re

going to do when you are held accountable for your actions, or there lack of. This is the idea

behind an accountability coach.

Wouldn’t it be great if our ‘good intentions’ worked the way that we think they should? Not

even enthusiasm guarantees positive results. There’s often a wide gap between our intentions and

our actions. Poor follow through is a fact of life for many of us. It not only threatens our health,

but it also prevents us from achieving personal, financial, and career goals that are well within

our reach.

Good intentions don’t magically lead to good results. They are a start, but you must have

the motivation to take action. Desire is unfortunately not enough and this is just the truth!

We fail to take the action necessary to be in alignment with our good intentions. And while we

might be frustrated, but somehow never change the negative habits. We stay in the same place,

repeating the bad habits that cause us endless frustration.

An Accountability Coach will hold you accountable to follow through with your “good

intentions” and call you on it when you don't. If this happens to you, it will not feel good and

you'll learn to just do what you need to do to avoid that uncomfortable "in your face" feeling of

accountability. In order to get what you don't have, you have to learn to break the habits that got

you where you are now. An Accountability Coach will help you get creative and try new

strategies to move to your next level. With the expertise, objectivity, creativity and insight of an

Accountability Coach, you will accomplish what you used to only intend to accomplish.

They will help you identify the habits and thoughts that are sabotaging your success and hold

you accountable for replacing the habits and thoughts that are producing your current results with

improved habits that increase your level of success. None of us is perfect and each of us has bad

habits and thoughts that are limiting our success. The longer we wait to change bad habits and

thoughts, the longer we will continue to produce our current reality. To change your

environment, you must change your habits and thoughts. It’s like changing from the old vinyl

album record to a new audio CD playing.

While anyone can act as your pseudo-accountability coach, even a friend, family member or co-

worker, only a professional accountability coach can offer proven strategies to increase your

level of success. Friends, family members and co-workers can offer valuable feedback on their

observances, but not much in the way of professional guidance. Besides, it’s difficult to really

take advice to heart from our friends, family or co-workers. Sometimes the people closest to us

are the ones we are most resistant to.

For the best results, find a professional accountability coach that can guide you from where you

are to where you want to be. Before you begin your accountability sessions, your coach will ask

you to create a very specific list of short- and long-term goals that you would like to achieve.

This goal outline will help your coach identify the habits needed in order to achieve these goals

and focus the accountability sessions to be most effective. Additionally, an accountability

program will help you realize improvements in the following areas:

Commitment to action

Improved follow-through

Increased high-payoff task productivity

Increased confidence

Developing successful habits and thoughts

This process is amazingly powerful and produces great results. When you are held responsible

for explaining why you didn’t complete a task, this can be a very effective motivator. It doesn’t

feel good to make excuses, least of all to your accountability coach. While there might be very

valid reasons why a task wasn’t complete, these are usually rare. My personal motto is, excuses

don’t count unless you are dead. This may sound a bit harsh, but the point is to break the habit

of making excuses. You either did it or you didn’t. Why waste time with excuses.

Even if you still have a tendency to procrastinate task completion until the last day, you better

bet your Thursdays will be highly productive days if your accountability session is on a Friday.

While your coach will encourage you to take daily action to avoid procrastination, one highly

productive day is still better than no productive days.

Your accountability coach may also suggest daily visualization exercises to help you focus on

goal achievement. Sessions may begin by reviewing your goals from the previous week,

followed by outlining your goals for the following week. After your goals for the following

week are discussed, your coach will lead you through a visualization exercise where you will

envision your goals already successfully completed. This visualization is incredibly effective

and focuses the mind on the actions needed to fulfill your visualization.

When you have to answer to an accountability coach, you will improve your commitment, focus,

follow-through, and productivity. Additionally, having an accountability coach will increase

your confidence and develop successful habits. You will also see a reduction in procrastination

because you will have deadlines to complete your goals, or be held accountable for their non-

completion.

The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of

habit. He must be quick to break those habits than can break him - and hasten to adopt those

practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.

J. PAUL GETTY

Founder of Getty Oil Company and widely regarded as the richest man in the world in the late

1950’s

© Anne Bachrach. All rights reserved. Anne M. Bachrach is known as The Accountability Coach™. She has 23 years of experience

training and coaching. Business owners and entrepreneurs who utilize Anne’s proven systems

and processes work less, make more money, and have a more balanced and successful life. Anne

is the author of the books, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule!, and Live Life with No Regrets;

How the Choices We Make Impact Our Lives, and The Work Life Balance Emergency Kit. Go to

http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/Achieve.Your.Goals.Free.Gifts.Now/ and get 3 FREE gifts

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