The Benefits of Having an Accountability Partner
As a creative, working for myself remotely at home, and being left to my own devices often results in me not getting the stuff done I need to. I need someone to help me make strategic choices and stay accountable. So there are many benefits of having an accountability partner to keep me on task.
God bless my accountability buddy. We have been meeting every workday morning for over four years so we decided to share how it started, how it helps, and how it continues. This blog is from my point of view, and you can read Kathleen’s POV here.
How and when we got together
In the not-so-glorious summer of 2020 when many of us shifted to running businesses online, Kathleen and I responded to a challenge in a small marketing mastermind to pick someone for your accountability partner. I had met Kathleen six months earlier at a networking meeting. Don’t tell her, but I thought she really had it together. We started meeting and trying out different strategies for these daily connections. When that group ended, we just kept going.
The structure of our calls
The point, really, is to choose our three top priorities then hang up and go do them. As a copywriter and a creative, I need this exercise to determine those top three priorities. When my brain starts throwing new, unrelated ideas out there, I can remind myself what must come first.
We also talk about how we did the day before, what we got done, and how to address what we didn’t. We help each other get through challenges in our business and we share the things that are going well. We have grown to know each other on a personal level. As a solopreneur, I value the people I can get advice and feedback from. You need a solid tribe, and Kathleen is my first support person.
The long-term impact on our businesses
My business is successful directly because of my daily accountability call with Kathleen. Setting my daily priorities allows me the freedom once they are accomplished to brainstorm and generate thoughts and ideas. I need that motivating fuel to write for my clients and myself. She’s helped me stay grounded when my creative mind has had other plans.
Besides our daily accountability call, I also utilize Kathleen’s weekly CEO Hour and her quarterly planning sessions, all of which require me to carve time out to work ON my own business.
I can easily get distracted by random things in life or business, phone calls and texts from my kids, and full disclosure - TikTok. I get pulled into the pressure of deadlines for my client work. Our daily connection keeps me more proactive and less reactive. It also keeps me aware of when I’m slipping into procrastination mode.
Here’s the breakdown of how this works:
Our daily call gives me permission to work ON my business so I can have the success I desire. I efficiently tackle my “top three”, and then move on to other things.
I spend time weekly organizing my week and what tasks I need to complete to get closer to my key goals. I also focus on other recurring CEO activities like bookkeeping, marketing, and networking that can fall off the list if I’m not on track.
I spend time every quarter in Kathleen’s quarterly planning session, choosing goals for the quarter, and creating a plan to achieve them.
When I can take smaller, realistic actions it motivates me to keep going. I love the feeling of being organized and getting stuff done and getting closer each day to achieving my chosen goals.
Why it works for us
We have complementary skillsets and perspectives. As a business strategist and consultant, Kathleen’s thoughts and suggestions come from a strategic mindset of “How are you realistically going to achieve that?”
As a copywriter and messaging consultant, my mindset is about “Can you say that in a more relatable way so your reader/site visitor/ client finds it clear and compelling?”
Here are the top reasons we keep it going:
We’re both committed to our businesses like we are to this arrangement. We show up every day when scheduled.
We are both grounded in the same values and both understand where the other is coming from in any given situation. This has been crucial during these past few years of challenges and transitions.
We know each other pretty well, professionally and personally. So we know the type of support the other responds to in difficult times. Each of us responds to different types of feedback.
Humor helps. And we love to laugh. On good days, that makes things more fun. On challenging days, it keeps us going.
We respect one another and engage in active listening, so we’re open to the critique and feedback each of us provides, even if it’s tough love. We don’t hesitate to admit if we didn’t accomplish what we said we would. And we’re not afraid to give each other a direct but gentle kick in the butt when necessary.
We know each other’s businesses well - dare I say intimately - and we know what the other shies away from and where we’ll need that extra support.
Being an entrepreneur is not for the soft hearted. I would not want to go through it without support - the same support that allows me to stay focused on the needs of my clients because I have my own business in order. I hear plenty of clients say, “I meant to share that on social” or “I wanted to write a blog this week but…” or “One of these days I’ll update my website copy.”
One of the actions I take during my weekly CEO Hour is delegating whatever I can. If you’re looking to delegate some of your writing tasks to an experienced copywriter, I’d love to chat about how I can help you.
P.S. This is all from my point of view. If you’d like to learn Kathleen’s point of view, you can read it HERE.