How To Be Accountable To Achieve Your Financial Goals

Everybody can appreciate an accountable person. Accountability is a skill that is highly desired at work and in relationships. It builds trust, improves performance, and instills confidence that what was promised will be fulfilled.

You understand the importance of being accountable to others. You may have heard the phrase, “Your word is your bond.” This means that if you tell someone you are going to do something, you follow through. In the book, The Four Agreements, the third rule is to Be Impeccable With Your Words.

Often, people will be more accountable to others than they would be to themselves. In other words, you will do what you promised someone else, but not what you promised yourself.

If you lack self-accountability this will delay your progress to your goals. This also applies to your financial goals. This can include a shrinking savings account, increased credit card debt, or a decreased net worth. If you have financial goals that you are not achieving, it is time to look at your accountability.

This article highlights what self-accountability is, reasons why people are not accountable, and practical steps to become accountable to your financial goals.

Self-Accountability Explained

Self-accountability is honoring your word not only to others but to yourself as well. It means when you say you are going to do something, you do it regardless of the circumstances. There is no gray area.

The words that you speak are extremely powerful; more so than people are led to believe. People think that words are menial and do not matter which is likely the reason why people do not achieve their goals.

Reasons You Aren’t Accountable To Yourself

Most people won’t disagree that you should do what you tell others to do. But rarely do they say this principle should be applied to yourself. Especially as adults, there are few people that can hold you accountable to do what you said you would do.

It is great to have an accountability partner because they can assist with this process, but you still must be accountable to yourself. Why? Because you are responsible for your actions and you are capable of being accountable.

But to be honest, it is easy not to be accountable to yourself. Here are a few reasons why:

No Immediate Consequences

You can easily justify to yourself why it makes sense not to do what you said you would do. One excuse to not follow through will likely not have a significant impact. But it likely does not stop at one excuse. That one excuse becomes two and it continues until it becomes a habit.

I know this from personal experience. One area where I was not accountable is providing weekly financial education content for this website. One week off easily turned into two weeks, which easily turned into several months, to over a year. I did not feel an immediate impact or consequence for not showing up, so the guilt slowly disappeared.

This behavior can show up in your money when you disregard your spending plan. You may spend more than planned because you are tired, overwhelmed or bored. This one time may not have a huge impact, but disregarding your spending plan overtime will easily delay your financial progress.

Created a Habit of No Follow Through

Behaviors practiced over time eventually become a habit. Regardless of how big or small the action is, over time your brain knows how to respond and what to expect. It is not until the pattern is disrupted and a new pattern is formed that a change can occur.

This behavior can show up in your money by consistently transferring money out of your savings account to buy more stuff. Over time, your savings account will look the same. You have created a habit of not saving.

You Overcommit

When you overcommit, that can lead to overwhelm where you feel like you cannot keep up. Overcommitting means that you are spreading yourself too thin. Everything becomes a priority, which means nothing is a priority. You are trying to do it all.

This shows up in your money by trying to tackle all of your financial goals at one time. There is power in focus. When you try to do too many things at a time, you may experience fatigue because you are only making incremental progress on everything rather than significant progress on one.

A good example of this is the debt snowball method. With this method, most of your money is targeted at a specific debt and when this is paid off, you move to the next. It builds momentum and a sense of progress.

You Try To Please Everyone

If you are a people pleaser you can easily put others’ desires over your own. While you should be generous, you should still be able to achieve your goals. I especially see this with mothers. They give and give to their family, only to be left overwhelmed and drained because there was no time for them.

I understand that people go through seasons in their life where there is no balance, but it’s important to commit to one thing for yourself.

This shows up with your money is you do not save and invest for your retirement because all your money is dedicated to current day expenses. By doing this, you miss out on the benefits of compound interest. Compound interest needs time to work, but the longer you delay the less time it has to compound.

Practical Steps To Be Accountable For Your Goals

Now that you understand some of the reasons people are not accountable, below are four practical actions you can do to improve your accountability.

Confirm The Desire

The first step to being accountable is to make sure that you are committing to something that you want. Do you desire this goal? Do you really want the outcome?

This is important to understand because if there is a true desire, this will help you stay committed. Once you know this is something that you want, ask yourself, “What will happen if I achieve this goal? List out the possibilities of what can happen when you achieve this goal.

Next, ask yourself, “What will happen if I don’t achieve this goal? What are the consequences? Do I care?”

Write out as many possibilities and consequences as you can think of and use this as motivation to hold yourself accountable to your goals.

For example, if you had a goal to reach financial independence.

Possibilities

You can spend more time with your family.
You will feel more empowered to pursue your God-given purpose without reservation about money or lifestyle.
You remove the financial worry and stress.
You have more time and energy to pursue joyful experiences.
You can give freely to others.
Your children can go to the school of their choice.
You can break generational curses of poverty and lack.

Consequences

You continue trading time for money.
You continue to work in a job that is not aligned with your purpose to support your lifestyle.
Your children may fall into the same trap of the rat race.
Limited time to travel with your family.

You get the point, right?

Avoid Commitment Overload

“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” – Jim Rohn

You do not have to do it all at the same time. People tend to get so excited about their goals that they want to go full throttle on everything. But if your life is not set up in a way that you can do all of it at once, then start with something that you can commit to.

Don’t try to commit to too much at one time. That is a recipe for failure and exhaustion. This means you need to learn to say no or not yet to some things.

Create A System

Systems save you time and energy. They also help you build habits faster. When your actions become a habit, the results will follow. One easy system to set up is automating your savings and investment goals. Once these are set up, continue to fund them on autopilot until you reach your goal.

Another system you want to create is how often you want to manage your money. Depending on your spending habits, you may choose to check your money weekly or monthly. You want to decide during these money review sessions what categories are you going to review.

If you are still managing your spending, then use the cash envelope system or set up alerts on your phone to warn you when are you close to the limit.

If you are comfortable with technology, you can easily review your financial position using a financial app such as Mint.com or Personal Capital.

Whichever method you choose, leverage the systems to help you stay on track with your financial goals.

Make It Public

If you need help staying accountable, make it public. Tell people about it. You already know that people are interested in what will happen. That is why reality shows are so popular.

I am not saying that you have to share all your business, but enough where you have some skin in the game. When you know people are watching, you have a greater desire to show up. Why? Because people may start asking you about it and anticipating what will happen next. They begin to look forward to the updates and the results.

This can also be an inspiration to others to take action. You never know how your actions can positively influence others.

With the rise of the internet, it has become easy to share with family, friends, and even strangers. I am biased toward starting a blog, but you can share on any platform that you feel comfortable.

Conclusion

The journey is not given to the swift, but to the one that endures. Now this Bible verse does not reference accountability but the importance of persistence. Be persistent with accomplishing your financial goals. Persistence comes from being accountable to your results. Continue to make progress and show up for yourself. Hold yourself accountable. Because at the end of the day, you are responsible for your results. When you truly embrace that, your money and your life will change. That’s getting your Finances On Point.

Tell us in the comments below, what are you going to commit to to achieve your financial goals?

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