I hope you understand how important accountability is to your fitness/coaching business.

It’s the ultimate differentiator between you and everyone else in town. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to “do” accountability.

I want to show you how accountability failed me so far this year…

One of my goals for 2018 was to take more mindfulness breaks during my work day. I am more productive, happier and just all around a better person when I take ten minutes in the afternoon.

But I have a bad habit of skipping it. Even though I know it’s good for me, I can easily tell myself “I’m too busy today” and keep working.

At the start of 2018, I decided I needed more accountability to make this a habit. I mean, I preach accountability all day long to my clients, why should it be any different for me?

I use the Headspace app for my mindfulness practice and there’s a setting for a daily reminder.

Perfect! I’ll set it up to get a push notification every afternoon to take a quick break.

Sound familiar?

Since the first week of January I’ve received a push notification every afternoon on my phone.

Do you know what’s changed? Diddly squat!!! Nothing. Nada.

In fact, as I was writing down my thoughts, I decided to look at my Headspace stats. The last time I used it… January 13th 🙁

That means I’ve received a daily notification the past five months and ignored it EVERY SINGLE DAY!

That’s sad.

But it got me thinking… This is the same sort of idea we use at Coach Catalyst. Daily notification sent directly to a client’s phone. Why does it work so well for CC but so poorly for me?

I’m a pretty motivated guy. My discipline is better than most. What gives???

I realized the power of accountability isn’t in the delivery of the reminder.

Real accountability has a human behind it.

Every day I looked down at my Headspace notification and ignored it, I knew no one else would ever know. I was failing myself, but no one else.

I’m good at failing myself 🙂

But with Coach Catalyst, there’s a coach behind the notifications providing real accountability. If my clients don’t check-in, you better believe I’m reaching out until they do.

Sure I could just let the system keep sending notifications but nothing will actually change for my clients. I’m proof of that!

To create an actual change, your clients need to know someone cares about their progress.

Someone is there watching how they do. Someone is willing to reach out and help pull them back up when they’re struggling.

The platform doesn’t matter. You can text your clients, email your clients, use paper tracking. Stop worrying about the exact platform. Start focusing on being the coach behind the reminders.

That’s what’s going to create a lasting change and allow you to impact more lives!

Because without a coach behind the reminders, it isn’t real accountability.