Raise your hand if you are a life-long looker for something to help you to get your sh!t together.

I am raising one hand as I type with the other 🙋‍♀️

NOW we could go on for days about the definition of ‘having it all figured out’ means – it’s totally different for each person and I’m not here to discuss this. The question was about looking for help, not if you do indeed already have your life in complete order or not.

I’m here to talk about external accountability and how it can help you get real with yourself and stop making excuses and procrastinating.

Personal Background

I’m just giving this to set the stage. Trust me, I don’t want to talk about me any more than you want to hear about me.

I’ve never been able to crack the ‘make fitness a routine’ habit. For as long as I can remember, it’s gone in spurts. A roller-coaster of doing the right things and then not.

The why’s of that particular issue for me are not relevant here. What is relevant is a solution that can stick.

Solution based thinking FTW!

What didn’t work for me:

All of the above gave me wiggle room to make excuses and at the end of the day, I only had myself to answer to. I must mention that the the fitness coach did review my progress once a week asynchronously with a loom video, so it wasn’t 1:1 with me facing the music if it was ugly. A lot happens in 7 days, so if you screw up a few of them it doesn’t seem so bad when viewing it in week mode.

I’m sharing my tale about fitness, but this applies to any area of life that you want to get a better hold on. Procrastination with work tasks, your finances, quitting a bad habit, your eating habits, learning a new language, being a more present member in your family, the list goes on and on.

The Four Tendencies

I heard about this framework on a podcast and I specifically remember it being in the beginning of the year when motivations are super high and I regularly was listing to health podcasts.

I took this quiz by Gretchen Rubin and I was in between and Upholder and Obliger – commonality being that I want to meet ‘Outer Expectations’ aka I don’t want to let others down.

So that explains why journals, calendars and apps don’t work for me.

I need eyeballs on me and I can’t let those eyeballs down.

I think this is a fun little quiz to take to recognize where you land as far as expectations – especially if you work for yourself or work remote and have a bit more freedom than those in an office setting.

+1 for LinkedIn Suggestions

One day I posted on LinkedIn for a friend who I was encouraging to turn her life upside down, quit her job and become an accountability coach. My post was testing the waters to see if there was a demand for this service. My post must’ve not been very clear because I was immediately DMed by a bunch of gurus wanting to be my life coach.

One comment was from a growth mentor about a service called BaaS – Boss as a Service that she had heard of.

I took a look and was sold within 1 minute. I got my credit card out and bought a subscription for myself and one of my team mates.

Why BaaS Works

Once you get going with BaaS you are assigned a human being to check in with you DAILY. That is right folks, every single day of the week except Sundays you can expect a message asking about your progress. This is where the weekly check-ins with the fitness coach wasn’t enough. When you are a procrastinator, you need someone to stay on top of you.

My Boss and I use WhatsApp to communicate and it’s super efficient.

What I really like about this service is it’s not just “👋 Hi! How’s it going?” – it’s “Hi 🙂 How is that blog post you said you were going to write by Tuesday? It’s Wednesday now and you haven’t shown me any progress.”

You set your goals and they will hold you accountable specifically to what you stated. For me it is fitness, for others it is more focused on work related tasks.

I set my goal for 300 calorie burn sessions and here’s a weekly summary.

Your Boss asks for proof of task completion which for me is rewarding- it sort of gamifies it all.

If I would have set this blog post as a goal for the day, she would ask me for a link. When I started out, I was including work tasks, but I’m pretty good at completing what I set out to do in the work arena, so I switched my focus purely to fitness.

As far as exercise consistency, I’ve never been in a better place in my entire adult life. Is it because of my Boss? Sure, knowing that she is there helps to get the task done and thinking of my weekly emoji checklist that she makes is definitely motivation. BUT at the end of the day it’s down to us, right?!

By checking in with a human everyday, it helps to build the habit which is the ultimate goal: to just do the desired outcome naturally.

10 Fun Ideas to focus on with your Boss

  • Send a picture of a clean kitchen each night before you go to bed
  • Focus on connecting with friends and aim to connect with one person a day
  • Send a screen shot of completed DuoLingo sessions
  • Work in a new location once a week
  • Try new fitness videos and send the link once you complete it
  • Send a weekly picture of keeping your garden in order
  • Write a post-it note to your partner each day to show you care
  • Log-in to your budgeting app each day and prove that you are taking your finances seriously
  • Make your bed each morning
  • Meet with a different person at least once a week for a coffee

Modern Day Accountability

Back in the day you would go to your office, sit in your cubicle and have your boss checking up on you from time to time to make sure you were getting your work done.

While nobody wants Bill Lumbergh (watch: Office Space) breathing down their neck, the new way of working leaves a lot more room for distractions to take center stage and lead us down YouTube rabbit holes instead of getting our work done.

Since launching GrowthMentor in 2018 the number one thing that is a constant is that everyone is scrambling. Scrambling to prioritize and get things in order. I’ve def seen the trend in spending more time in putting together to-do lists than executing what is on them.

It’s more fun to plan than to do.

If this sounds familiar, get yourself a Boss and each day send one task that you will be fully accountable for that day and focus on that. Don’t send 3. Send 1 task each morning and get in the routine.

Your Boss will always show up, so if this doesn’t work for you- it’s you, not them 😉

And while your Boss is there to hold you accountable to the goals you set, they are also flexible with your changing habits and needs. If you want to switch from work tasks to studying Japanese on DuoLingo, they will be ready to switch up the plan.

They have a monthly plan that you can try out and if you are a GrowthMentor member, we have a discount code for 10% off so just dm me in Slack and I’ll hook you up.