Google “
Coaching and mentoring” and you get 13 million search results. By a metric that’s a high number. In a world that now has more information that Kings and Presidents used to have why do we need a coach or a mentor? Surely we can just find the information online.
Outsourcing our Accountability
Why personal training is booming. Without a personal trainer, people fail to attend the gym on a regular basis. The gym industry has a membership subscription for a reason. They know that 10-20% of members will not attend from one month to the next. Giving them a boost in revenue without ever affecting their total capacity. Money for nothing.
We have too many choices in life – it’s overwhelming. As a result, we struggle to both make a decision and also keep our promises. We’ve become conditioned to fail.
Why business and life coaching is booming
If you told someone 20 years ago you had hired a life coach and were getting weekly coaching and mentoring they would have laughed at you. Today they are a massive burgeoning industry growing year on year. What skills have we lost that we need to employ someone to tell us what we already know? Where are our friends, family or network that can give us the help and guidance we need?
Coaching is often just paid motivation. Good coaches can provide great feedback, strategies, and advice. But that is not always the case. We are seldom paying just for the advice or the knowledge. As much as we are paying for the
accountability and commitment to turn up consistently.
I’m going to commit to commitment – George Constanza-Seinfeld.
We don’t value free information
“Information is everywhere. Intelligence is rare”
Similar to the Derek Sivers quote
“If information was the key we’d all be multi-millionaires with perfect abs.”
Another similar quote from Tools of Titans
As a result we prefer to pay for a course, or a coach to tell us things we know or can find out pretty easily. We want all the information packaged up for us – so we can just follow along and not have to join the dots. Unfortunately, a one size fits all doesn’t work. It’s why online courses often don’t work and people give up halfway through.
We have outsourced our accountability
Built it into our outgoings. Delegated it to someone else. Removed the responsibility off our shoulders.
We have lost the ability to hold ourselves accountable
Your accountability is usually to your clients. If your existing business is based on a skill you already know then there is little that’s the EASY bit. You’ve most likely built a business around what you are good at – so completing these things are easy to you.
Personal accountability has been defined as “being willing to answer … for the outcomes resulting from your choices, behaviors, and actions.”
When you’re personally accountable, you take ownership of situations that you’re involved in. So as a small business owner, does that sound like you? Is this really something you should be outsourcing?
Accountability is a skill you can learn
If you cannot afford a life coach or a business coach or have a mentor (and these can be pretty expensive at upwards of $300 per session) then learn to be more accountable to the things that are important to you.
Try our
FREE mini-course on Accountability.
