Are you looking to create healthier habits right now in your life? You need an accountability partner.
No matter what habits you’re trying to kick, it’s always best to try to replace it with a healthier one so you can still receive the same reward.
For example: if you want to break the habit of eating ice cream after dinner to satisfy your sweet tooth, you can replace it with having greek yogurt with berries + some dark chocolate chips. You still get to have a treat + satisfy your sweet tooth. But, in a healthier way!
That might seem like a simple habit to break. But, for most of us… it just isn’t that simple.
Why? We are so tied to our old habits + are used to the comfort that our well-ingrained habits already give us daily.
We really are creatures of habit.
So, to change any of your habits (what you eat, working out, getting more sleep, watching less tv, etc) to healthier ones, you need to have at least one accountability partner.
In this post, I explain 7 reasons you need an accountability partner to change your habits.
1. OLD, COMFORTING HABITS ARE HARD TO BREAK
Just like I mentioned above, we become very attached to habits that are a part of our daily routine. They make up who we are + what’s important to us. I am sure you’ve said many times that you want to ditch an unhealthy habit for a healthier one + you become “gung ho” about creating a healthier lifestyle.
In our minds, we convince ourselves it’s easy…until we go to change the behavior + end up repeating our old habits usually within a week or even days. It can seem impossible to do alone many times. Why? It all goes back to us wanting to feel comfortable: which is what our already built habits provide for us, whether they’re healthy or unhealthy. You need an accountability partner to make real change!
- Related: HOW TO BREAK BAD HABITS FOR GOOD
2. YOU BREAK PROMISES TO YOURSELF OFTEN + FIND EXCUSES
You are human. It might be hard to hear, but I bet you are someone who makes promises to yourself all of the time + you don’t follow through. Honestly, if you weren’t that way you wouldn’t be reading this article. That’s ok! That defines most of us [myself included!]. You promise to yourself that you’ll wake up earlier, eat healthier, workout regularly, spend less money, sleep more, be more positive, etc…
What most likely happen? You tell yourself excuses so you don’t have to follow through with the behavior so you can go back to those comfortable habits. What’s interesting is that humans don’t like disappointing other people. We’d rather break promises to ourselves than to others around us. An accountability partner will help you ditch those excuses because you’d be making a promise to them.
3. THEY CAN HELP YOU MAKE A STEP BY STEP PLAN
Creating new habits + a healthier lifestyle can be a difficult task to approach because there can be many steps involved. Having an accountability partner can help you create a clear, focused plan that will help you reach your goals. They can guide you to which goals are most important to tackle first + can help you break down the exact steps needed for you to find success.
Ideally, you should choose someone who is at least a few steps ahead of you when it comes to creating healthier habits. It’s best if they’ve created the habits you’re trying to create already. That will help you to get good advice that works from someone who has experience, instead of guessing at what you need to do.
4. ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS CAN SEE YOUR BLIND SPOTS
Whether you want to admit it or not, you don’t always know yourself well enough to change your habits. We are often so into our routine that we don’t see the very small behaviors we are doing that are completely sabotaging the new habits we want to create.
For example, you want to wake up early to workout. But, you eat poorly the night before and stay up watching tv late. You might not pick up on how these habits can cause you to snooze 6 times until you’ve missed your window to work out. An accountability partner can go through your habits with you + help you see which ones need to be changed before tackling one of your main goals.
5. YOU NEED SOMEONE TO KINDLY CALL YOU OUT
Like I went over above, you cannot be in charge of calling yourself out because…. well… you probably won’t. You need to choose an accountability partner that will cheer you on, but someone who is also not afraid to call you out when you’re making excuses + straying from your goals.
Clearly, this job isn’t for just anyone. You don’t need someone that is going to yell at you + make you feel like crap for making mistakes. But, you need an accountability partner that will lovingly tell you what time it is. Someone to remind you WHY you want to make these change to your lifestyle in the first place.
6. THEY CAN REFOCUS YOU WHEN YOU WANT TO GIVE UP
A major part of of creating healthy habits is failure. Yes. Failure. If habits were so easy to change there wouldn’t be billions of dollars in the diet + exercise industry. Most of us struggle with it! We want to give up, we want to ditch creating healthier habits, + we want to snuggle back in of comfortable old habits.
An accountability partner is someone who will be there when you’re down on yourself. When you feel like you’re too far off track to get back. They will be there to remind you that you CAN make these changes to your lifestyle, even if you’re hitting roadblocks along the way + take a few pitstops. A healthy lifestyle is all about the journey, including both the good + bad days.
7. AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER WILL KEEP YOU MOTIVATED + INSPIRED
Motivation is a huge buzz word when it comes to creating a healthy lifestyle. When creating new habits, it’s really all about creating a more “disciplined” lifestyle where less motivation is needed. On your road to that discipline, you do need someone to keep you inspired + motivated to move forward on those tough days.
An accountability partner will be there to pump you up + re-inspire you daily/weekly/monthly to make those small, healthier choices that will lead to BIG changed in the long run. The best way you can do this is to choose someone on a similar health journey who also needs YOU to hold them accountable in some way!
READY TO CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY?
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