I just need someone to hold me accountable.

• “I just need someone to hold me accountable.”
• “If only there was a community where I could get advice…”
• “Let me tell you my plan…”

Have these phrases ever passed your lips? And then you failed to

1. execute your plan
2. take action on the advice you received, or
3. be accountable?

I’m going to assume the answer is “Yes,” because it’s a mistake we’ve all made before. Although some of us longer than others.

That’s what I did for about a decade before shipping Twistori, before Noko, before JavaScript Performance Rocks! — before 30x500. I used to talk about the business I would build, some day. The software I would design, some day. I had HUGE ambition.

I was always looking around for something that would make me do it.

And I learned: There’s no such thing.

There is no force on earth that can make you do something.

Really — nothing.

Even if a moustachio’d highwayman held you at gunpoint and demanded “YOUR LAUNCH DATE OR YOUR LIFE,” you would still be choosing between consequences: Do I ship? Or do I take the bullet? You get to choose. You cannot be truly forced.

And why would you want to be, anyway? Why would you want to put yourself in that position?

Nobody does, not for long.

So you say you want “an accountability partner,” and that lets the pressure off, and then…nothing gets done. No surprise there: you relied on the pressure, and then you let it escape. Accidentally on purpose.

This is a pattern I’ve seen over & over in myself, before I decided to get over it. And in the last 5 years I’ve seen it in so many of our students.

It’s one of the core causes of failure and if you want to succeed, you need to address it.

To help you, I recorded a little Amy Productivity Psychology Story Time for you. I explain the why, the wherefores… and what to do about it:

If you wanna listen to this on your phone, you can add our Stacking Bricks podcast from iTunes and tune in to Episode #11.

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