I blew my own mind by learning to hold myself accountable

I can still taste the Pumpkin Spice International Delight coffee creamer as I remember sitting in my cubicle, thinking the second cup of coffee would be necessary that day.

It was Monday, and Mondays were always full of meetings that I had to try to not doze off during.

I sat there, trying to decide how to start my day:

• Answer customer service emails,

• Check the likes on our last post, or

• Work on my notes for the “Social Media Last Month” presentation.

The problem was, I didn’t care about any of it. It all felt pointless. Sitting in that cubicle didn’t feel like where I was meant to be.

I was giving 45 hours a week to a job that paid me $55k a year—decent to some, but to me, it felt like the opposite of freedom.

I’d daydream about traveling back to Europe to explore the streets of Barcelona again.
I’d spend my breaks writing about topics like my fears around having kids or why some girls get judged for what they wear in the gym.

I felt annoyed that I had to plan my entire life around being cooped up in an office, working on tasks that didn’t light my fire.

For me, having a job meant sacrificing the life I wanted for one that felt safer.

This was exactly my problem: I had dreams and goals, but I wasn’t taking actions to make them real. I wasn’t holding myself accountable for building my dream life.

I had no one to blame for my unhappiness but myself—and my whole life changed the day I decided to take responsibility for that.

In March of 2021, the company that owned my cubicle brought all employees onto a Zoom call. They were bankrupt, and we were all being let go.

It felt like the universe was pushing me to finally make a choice:
Stay safe and find another 9-5 job or figure out how to make a living doing what I actually wanted.

I wanted to be able to work from a cafe in Europe. I wanted to earn enough to hire my sister as my assistant. I wanted (at least part of) my income to come from writing about my big “aha!” moments.

So, I wrote these down as my big goals:

• Start an online business 

• Earn enough to travel freely

• Hire my sister

• Find a way to earn money writing.

Within 18 months of starting my online business, I…

• 5X’d my average corporate monthly income

• Worked from Barcelona, Nice, London, Thailand, Montreal, Kelowna, and Florida

• Earned my first $5,000 from writing personal articles online.

And I’ve now helped more than 200 people do the same thing—take responsibility for their life and start making their goals happen.

You might be rolling your eyes, thinking “Oh great, another article about the importance of goal-setting.”

If goal-setting hasn’t ever worked for you, it’s almost certainly because you suck at holding yourself accountable.

I see this all the time when I take sales calls for the program that helped launch my entrepreneurial journey.

One of the most common questions people ask me is:
“What if it doesn’t work? Why do some people fail?”

Here’s what I always tell them because I believe it with everything in me:

The reality is, you have 100% control over whether you accomplish your goal or not. And if you take responsibility for that control, then you won’t fail. You’ll just learn a lot on the way toward success.

Many of us say we know that success doesn’t come quickly, but our actions don’t say that. We give up on something before we even give ourselves the chance to get really good at it.

So, here’s exactly what I did to help me start seeing progress toward my goals.

1. Start with your big goal. Here are some I’ve heard from people:

   • “By the end of the year, I want to lose 20 pounds.”

   • “In the next six months, I want to have $50,000 in my bank account.”

   • “Before 2024 ends, I want to sign five new clients.”

2. Break it down into weekly actions that will help you move closer to the goal:

   • “I will go to the gym five times this week.”

   • “I will have 20 conversations with this week people who are earning more than I am, and ask them how they did it.”

   • “I will spend one hour every day prospecting for new clients.”

3. Every morning, before you grab your phone, grab your Self Check-In journal (this can be any notebook). Take two minutes to answer this question:
   “What’s one thing I did yesterday that helped me move closer to my goal?”

If you can list more than one thing, fantastic! If you’re struggling to list anything, you’re not holding yourself accountable. 

For me, confidence comes from proving myself to myself, over and over again, that I can do it. Once I started forcing myself to stay on track and take small steps every day, I saw my dream life start to become real. That progress is addicting.

You can change your life even more drastically than I have. The only thing standing in your way are the actions you’re not taking.

Kick the thought of quitting out of your mind, and commit to showing up for yourself.
Otherwise, you only have you to blame.

If you want to start holding yourself accountable to building your own real online business, join our free accountability group where we help you land your first client in 30 days!