Why Accountability Isn’t Enough to Reach Your Health Goals

This week on the Redefining Health Podcast I'm sharing why accountability ALONE isn't enough to reach your health goals.

Often, when we have a health goal, the first thing we do is ask someone to help hold us accountable, right?

And this is because, having someone who knows your goal, who's able to even work towards the same goal right there with you is both empowering and helps you do the thing you said you wanted to do.

But, here's what I see and the problem with JUST getting accountability, whether it's from a friend, your spouse, even a coach or program you've tried or are currently in.

Just asking someone to hold you accountable ALONE doesn't build self-accountability. Self-accountability is the ability to say you want to do something and then following through on your own.

Often, we need accountability to develop self-accountability. But, if you're not doing this inner work of developing self-accountability alongside whatever you're doing, you'll find yourself right back where you were the moment your friend moves away and can't meet up anymore to walk with you. Or the moment the program ends, you're back to your old eating habits.

So how do we build self-accountability?

Another way to think about self-accountability is self-trust or “doing what you said you would do”. This also builds self-confidence.

Here are a few ways to practice building self-trust and self-accountability.

1. Look for ways you already trust yourself. Think of a time where you did what you said you would do or made a decision and didn’t overthink it. Maybe it was last night at dinner, you decided to order something on the menu just because it sounded good and didn’t think about what other people would think. Or maybe you said you’d do the laundry yesterday and you did it. As you can see, these do NOT have to be these massive moments. We build self-trust and self-accountability from the little moments.

2. Give yourself a small task and commit to doing it. And DO IT. This will build up your confidence and the belief that you do what you say you will do.

3. Celebrate and look for the wins. Little & big. Celebrating is the fuel for confidence. And as we already said, confidence builds self-accountability.

This is just a little overview of the podcast episode on the Redefining Health Podcast. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts on Apple, Spotify, or Google.

So, maybe after reading this, you realize that not having self-accountability is a big reason why you’ve struggled with consistency. Maybe you are thinking, “yeah, I do have a self-trust issue… I don’t trust myself to do what I said I would do”.

I want you to know that this is a skill you can build! And this is something we work on together inside my program Stop Dieting Start Living. Not only am I holding you accountable, but I’m also teaching you to become a person who is self-accountable. Because my goal is to help you get to the place where you can be done with dieting for GOOD. To learn more about working together, click HERE.