In this episode of the 'MyBestSelf' podcast, hosted by Megan McCrory, the focus is on empowering goals through accountability and action.

Megan discusses overcoming common obstacles like distractions and procrastination. Drawing from Gretchen Rubin's book 'The Four Tendencies', she explores different personality types - Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels - and how they respond to external and internal expectations.

She highlights the importance of understanding one's own tendencies to develop effective strategies toward achieving goals. Megan cites a study from Dominican University of California arguing that writing down goals and maintaining accountability through progress reports greatly enhances goal attainment.

She suggests steps such as breaking down goals into smaller tasks, tracking progress, and celebrating successes. She also emphasizes the significance of having an accountability coach or partner.

• The Four Tendencies Quiz | Gretchen Rubin

0:00 Unlocking Success: Empowering Goals through Accountability and Action

00:01 Introduction and Podcast Topic

01:02 Understanding the Four Tendencies

02:20 Applying the Four Tendencies to Goal Setting

03:07 Breakdown of the Four Tendencies in the Population

04:04 Strategies for Achieving Goals

05:20 Action Steps to Achieve Your Goals

06:59 The Importance of Celebrating Successes

08:34 Addressing the Challenge of Achieving Goals

09:31 The Role of Accountability in Achieving Goals

10:50 Conclusion and Call to Action

Megan: 00:00:01

Hello.

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Wonderful souls.

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Welcome back to MyBestSelf the podcast

where we navigate the twists and turns of

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life helping you level up along the way.

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I'm your host, Megan McCrory,

your friendly guide to

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unleashing your full potential.

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And today we're diving deep into

the world of empowering goals

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through accountability and action.

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Recently, I ran a poll on LinkedIn asking

which goal oriented workshops resonated

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the most with you and resoundingly.

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The two that came over as the

top were tackling distractions

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and overcoming procrastination.

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Now I suffer too from distractions

and procrastination so I immediately

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felt that I had found my tribe.

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We all admire and, I secretly envy,

you know, those people who manage to

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accomplish everything that they set out

to do, you know who I'm talking about?

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I think everybody has one of

those people in your life.

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Now, according to Gretchen Rubin

in her book, The Four Tendencies,

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these people are Upholders.

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The book explores how individuals respond

to both outer and inner expectations.

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Upholders can meet both

types of expectations.

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Your boss tells you something to do.

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You do it.

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You want to do something, you do it.

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Both are going on at the same time.

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While Obligers meet outer expectations,

but struggle with inner expectations.

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So they're the ones who will do

everything their boss tells them

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to do, but they won't do that

workout routine that they want to

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do or read the book that they want.

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They'll put everybody

else ahead of themselves.

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Now Questioners and that's me.

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On the other hand.

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We question all expectations before

deciding whether to meet them.

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And Rebels resist all expectations.

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Now there is a lot more going

on in the four tendencies.

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Highly recommend that you grab

her book and check it out or check

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out Gretchen Rubin's podcast.

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The happier podcast and where she

talks all the time about the four

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tendencies and dives, deep, deep,

deep into all of these things.

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It is a fantastic rabbit hole.

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I suggest you hop into it.

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Where I think you should start though,

is understanding your own tendencies.

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And, um, you can do that by

taking the four tendencies quiz.

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And when you do that, it, and you

understand your tendency, you'll be able

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to develop strategies for achieving your

goals and overcoming procrastination.

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So, you know, as I was a Questioner

in the past, a lot of times I

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procrastinated things that I didn't

understand why my managers wanted

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me to do those things, you know?

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And when I asked why.

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That was seen as challenging them.

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And.

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So you can see how life

can be a little smoother.

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If you understand what your tendency

is, um, in both your workplace

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and at home in it, et cetera.

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Now, according to Gretchen Rubin and her

research here is the breakdown of the

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results of the four tendencies quiz for

all the people who have taken this quiz.

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And there must be hundreds

of thousands by now.

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I don't know how many but a

lot, cause this has been out

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for probably 10 years now.

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41.

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Percent.

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are obligers.

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So almost half of the

population are obligers and

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that's the biggest population.

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24% are questioners.

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19% are upholders and 17% are rebels.

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So here's the disclaimer.

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This episode is not for the upholders.

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I am speaking to the obligers

and the questioners because let's

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be honest, the rebels, they're

not listening to this either.

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Right?

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So there are still ways

to achieve your goals.

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Although it may not be easy for

us as it is for the upholders.

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There are still scientifically

proven strategies that can

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help us in the process.

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And they're not at all

painful to put in place.

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Research has shown that writing

down your goals, committing to

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goal directed act actions and being

accountable for those actions.

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Can greatly increase the likelihood

of achieving those goals.

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Now if you miss that, hit the

rewind button for 10 seconds

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and listen to that again.

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So a study conducted by the Dominican

university of California found that

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those who wrote down their goals

achieved significantly more than those

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who did not write their goals down.

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Additionally, those who made commitments

to a friend and sent weekly progress

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reports accomplished significantly

more than those who had unwritten

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goals, wrote their goals or even

formulated action commitments.

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So.

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Writing your goals will

get you half the way there.

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But those people who made

the commitments to external

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accountability, to friends, those

people did even better than those who

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Just wrote their goals down.

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So, how can you apply these

findings to your own life.

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So here are the actions to consider.

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Number one.

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Write down your goals.

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So it's pretty straightforward.

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Write them down.

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Take some time to clearly define

your goals and write them down.

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Be specific and make sure that

they are some way measurable.

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They don't have to be necessarily

smart goals, SMART goals.

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But you have to know when

you meet them, right.

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So they have to be measurable in a way.

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Did you meet the goal?

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So maybe that's a better way of saying it.

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Number two, make commitments, share

your goals and your commitments with

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a friend or an accountability coach.

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And this will help you hold yourself

accountable and increase the likelihood

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that you will achieve your goals.

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Number three.

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Take action.

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Break down your goals into smaller

achievable tasks and make a plan on how

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you accomplish each task and commit.

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To an action.

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Number four, keep track of

everything that you do and make

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adjustments as needed this.

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I recommend to do on a

daily and weekly basis.

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At the end of each week, you

can look at your progress.

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Did you make progress on your goals?

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And if you didn't make progress on those

specific goals, were there other things

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that you achieved that still moved you

forward in other ways in, you know,

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in your life, maybe not the goals that

you were looking for, but, you know,

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And if none of that happened, why not?

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And how can you consider.

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You know, switching it up.

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And this is really where sending

like a weekly progress report to

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your accountability coach can help

keep you on track as according

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to what the study had said.

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And the last thing is to make

sure you celebrate your successes.

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When you achieve a goal, take the

time to celebrate your accomplishment.

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This will really help you build

momentum and keep you motivated to

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continue working towards your next goal.

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This is so hard for me to do.

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And this year I have

started in my new planner.

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On a calendar is every day writing down

one to three things that I did that day

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as accomplishments, because that way I can

look at the whole month and see all the

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accomplishments I did in the whole month.

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And.

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This is really going to be helpful.

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And I've heard this from a

lot of other people as well.

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You know, we get to the end of the

year, we want to reflect what was

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our accomplishments for the year.

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And it is so difficult.

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It's so difficult to reflect

out a whole year at a time.

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So if you reflect just every day, the

three things that you did that day, then

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maybe at the end of the week from all

of those things that you did, the 21

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things that you did, three things a day.

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Maybe you pick the top three from that.

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And then every month you have 12 really

amazing things that you got done.

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And then at the end of the year,

you have 144 things, you know, 12

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times 12, um, that you can pick from

as your list of accomplishments.

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So you can, it's kind of fun.

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It's kind of like.

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Like a bracket system with

basketball, like, oh, is that a

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bigger accomplishment than that?

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And then at the end you really

have this gigantic list of things

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that you've accomplished and

you can feel good about that.

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And then you can celebrate it.

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Everything that I've just said is

not groundbreaking information.

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If you're listening to this podcast,

you probably have listened to other

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hundred other podcasts talking about.

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Goals and personal development

and, improving yourself, and this

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is not groundbreaking information

and you've probably heard it

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several, several times before.

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Perhaps you even maybe tried some.

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But you're still failing

to achieve your goals.

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Otherwise you wouldn't be listening

to this podcast episode and you're

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wondering like, what can you do now?

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You've tried all these things or

you think you've tried all of them.

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You can continue to work alone, uh,

at home kind of in your own little

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silo or however it is that you work

and you can hope that those results

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will be different from last time.

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Or you can try something

new and different.

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And to maybe get different results.

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And in my experience, the most impactful

tactic for achieving results as an

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obliger or a questioner is to have

an accountability coach or partner.

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Probably the hardest

part is finding someone.

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You would want to partner with as an

accountability partner or the financial

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resources to hire an accountability coach.

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If you are, you know, if that is something

where you're like, you really are ready

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to move forward and make that there's

ways to find accountability partners.

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And there's also, obviously I

do accountability coaching and I

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think accountability coaching is

probably the least expensive type

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of coaching that you could get.

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There are a lot of offers out there

on Fiverr people, who will just,

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you know, text you throughout the

week and, or you can, like, what

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I do is I do like a 15 minute call

every Monday or Friday, whenever the

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client wants to really go through

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what, what did you do this week and

really do the coaching part of that.

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I would suggest if you have tried these

tactics before and it's not changing

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anything, then do something different

and something different would be getting

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some kind of external accountability.

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Before we wrap up.

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I want to make sure I hear

from you in the comments.

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Do you have an accountability

coach or partner?

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How did you find your coach and partner?

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Um, and how has it changed

the way you tackle your goals?

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And I also would love to

know what your tendency is.

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And how knowing your tendency

is impact your goals.

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Um, let's share together on

the website on mybestself.fit

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and help level each other up.

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Thank you for joining me on my best self.

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Don't forget to become a

member and support the show.

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Your support keeps this podcast going and

we appreciate every single one of you.

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Until next time, keep

leveling up, stay awesome.

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And let's crush those goals together.