Lori mentioned this yesterday, but I wanted to be sure to give this topic its due.

I mentioned writing down and regularly reviewing your goals, checking off the steps you’ve completed. This gives you self-accountability. For some people who are extremely self-motivated, this is all you’ll need. But for the other 98% of us, we need to take it one step further into public accountability.

You can choose to do this either through posting all your goals on your blog or MySpace or Facebook page and asking whoever is interested to help keep your feet to the fire.

However, there may be some goals that you don’t want to share with just anyone who might happen to stumble across your page. There are some goals that are going to be of such a sensitive nature that you’ll want to choose very carefully with whom you share them. So there are several things to keep in mind when choosing what level of accountability you need for your goals.

1. Is this something you know you can achieve on your own, with no one there to prod you on?

2. If your goal is of a sensitive/private nature, you might want to find an accountability partner with whom you meet/communicate regularly, someone who’s been through the same situation, someone who can encourage you in ways that no one else can.

3. Do you want encouragement and support from anyone who’ll provide it? Then you can go ahead and post your goals publicly.

4. Do you want people to hold you specifically to your goals—sticking to your timeline, urging you to re-evaluate when necessary?

It’s up to you to let your accountability partner or group know just what level of accountability you’re looking for. And these can be taken in steps. You can try self-motivating. If that doesn’t work, you can share it with one other person. If that doesn’t work, share your goals publicly and ask for support. And finally, if that doesn’t work, ask an accountability group to hold you specifically to your timelines/goals.

But just making your goals known does not accountability make. Follow-up is an important component of accountability. YOU need to review your goals and accomplishments regularly—with the accountability partner or in that public venue—and if you’re not making progress on them, if you’ve fallen behind on your timetable, ASK FOR HELP.

External influences work to knock us off track, to get us sidetracked or distracted. So we need to bring in other external influences to help keep us focused on working toward and achieving our goals.

Once you set your goals and write them down for yourself, go back through them and see what level of accountability you need on each one and go ahead and get that support system in place.