Last year I managed to go and train in the gym 138 times. I should have comfortably reached 150 times had I not been travelling between October and November. That is the most disciplined training year I have ever had in my life. I have always been generally active, however, in the past, I used to have periods I faded away and did not train at the gym for months. I was very impressed with my discipline last year so much that this year I have set myself the goal of training 200 times in the gym. Looking back at last year, I was trying to figure out what made the difference; why was I able to keep the discipline going for the whole year? The answer was not difficult to decipher, it was the “Accountability buddy effect“.
From the 24th March 2014, I started training with one of my good friends, Jateen. We scheduled our training sessions after work, typically meeting at the gym at 20:30 hrs every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The other days were reserved for playing soccer, running or much needed rest days. From the time I started training with Jateen, it was very difficult to miss a gym session. It felt like I would be letting down a friend. This is the power of having an accountability buddy. There are days when I just felt so tired after a long work day, and if I did not have a friend expecting me at the gym, the probability was very high that I would not have gone in. At the end of our weight training sessions, we would do a few core exercises to work our abs. There were also some sessions where after completing the weight training I wanted to just leave the gym because I was tired, but then Jateen would say, “Are we going to work on the core today?”, and I knew immediately that I was not going to escape with just weight training.
This “Accountability Buddy Effect” definitely works for more than just training in the gym. In fact, anything challenging that you want to achieve and you know you may start slacking off will be helped by having one or more accountability buddies that keep you accountable. It has an even better effect if the accountability buddies have the same goals and are also attempting the challenge, as was the case between Jateen and I with the gym training. You can have accountability buddies for the books you want to read and learn from, the number of blog posts you want to write a week, starting your own business, quitting a bad habit such as smoking, and many more.
When you choose an accountability buddy, think of them as being like your coach on the sidelines. They want to share in your journey and they want to see you succeed. The best accountability buddy is someone who will be brutally honest with you. They are likely following a similar journey and can be held accountable by you too. The relationship has to be mutually beneficial. Choose accountability buddies that will support you in making sure you keep your commitments.
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