The Mindset Mentor - 5 Keys to Holding Yourself Accountable

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

One of the most important parts of your success depends on if you can learn to hold yourself accountable. In this episode, we will share 5 of our biggest tips for holding yourself accountable.Join my 7 Day Grow Your Coaching Business Challenge here: thecoachchallenge.com Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. Today is Thursday. That means that it is the business edition of the Mindset Mentor. And it also means that I am joined by my best friend and business partner, Dean DeVries. Dean, what's going on, buddy? It is going amazing, brother. It's great to be here. And I'm excited about this topic today too, because this is something that we've seen a lot of people struggle with, people that we've coached, and it's accountability. And I feel like this is really one of the main things that holds people back from running a successful business. So

I'm ready to dive in, brother. Yeah. So in this episode, we're going to dive into some of our keys to hold yourself accountable. And this will help really, if you're a business owner, it'll help if you're a sales rep, it'll help even if you're just someone working from home right now. And this will help you just as a human, because one of the things that I've found is that people don't hold themselves to the highest standard that they possibly can. They don't hold themselves accountable. And really, if you think about it, why is it so hard for us to be accountable with ourselves? And if you think about the way we're raised, we're not really raised in a society where there's a whole lot of accountability

when we're in our younger years. If you think about going to school, school doesn't really instill accountability a whole lot in you. You have a start time, the time you have to get to school. You have the end time of every single period, you have the five minutes to walk into class, you have your lunch, and then you get out of school, and then you go to work. And what happens when you get a job, you have a start time when you're supposed to walk in the door, when you're supposed to walk out of the door, you have your lunchtime, all of that stuff. And so today, what we're going to dive into is how to instill accountability into yourself, because it's not something that we are all born with.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Because, you know, our society is really raises us to be rule followers, right? We have we have these rules, we have these, you know, the structure that we can operate in. And as an entrepreneur, there is no structure. There are no rules, right? I mean, you could pretty much, you can do whatever you feel like doing, whatever you want to do, whatever you feel like you need to do. And so that's really where the self-accountability comes in. And, you know, there's also major consequences for not being accountable, you know, like not hitting goals, you know, like not, not hitting goals, you know, and, and part of not hitting goals, like imagine, imagine being a business owner and you might be, you know, if you're listening to this, you might have either experienced this, or you might actually be

experiencing this right now, being in a situation where you have, uh, just not done the things that you know, you should be doing, or you could be doing. And as a result, you're not hitting your goals, you know, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And if you don't, if you don't hit your goals, uh, that, that many times in a row, you start to not believe in yourself. Yeah. And it's also one of the things I think that a lot of people don't think about is that if, if you want to build a successful business or have goals for yourself or have higher standards for yourself, and you don't hold yourself accountable, like accountable to everything that you're supposed to be doing, you're basically living out of integrity with yourself and your business. And one of the ways

to really lose confidence in yourself, in yourself is to stop showing up for yourself. Like if you say, Oh, I want to do a million dollars in my business this year, and you're not getting into work on time, you're not doing things you need to do, you're not gonna be building confidence in yourself as a business owner. So it's not that there's a lot of terrible business owners is that there's a lot of people and we've coached thousands of business owners. There's a lot of people that just don't hold themselves to the standard that they truly need to hold themselves to. And that's one of the key things that we're going to dive into as we go through it as well. Yeah, And just one thing I'll add on that is, you know, living out of integrity in this way where, you know, some people, some people I've

heard this many times actually, where people, you know, are out of integrity in their business, but it's not really hurting anybody else other than themselves. However, that's like the direct relationship that they have with being out of integrity in their business. The other thing though, is you have to understand that, you know, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So, you know, if you're not being accountable in your business, I know for sure that there's other areas that you're not living up to your highest potential in, that you're not being an integrity. And the consequences of that, like I said, it's, it really, you know, when, when we step into, uh, like really be accountable and really step into,

you know, our highest potential, it tends to, uh, radiate to all these other areas in our lives. And so, you know, and that's why I think business is so great for just developing ourselves personally is because your business is going to tell you what you need to work on. You know, your business is going to tell you, you know, where, where you need to grow, not just as a, as a business owner, as a leader, just as a person, you know, your, your, your deficiencies and the things where you are being out of alignment or out of integrity, your business is going to show you by, you know, draining your bank account, or, you know, not hitting your goals, or you not feeling not not retaining the people that you want on your team. So there's so many different ways that this can manifest. But how we do one thing is how we do everything. So, you know, being an integrity in your business is really, you know, like, I just think that that has a ripple effect to so many other things. Yeah. And yeah, I completely agree with you because your business is basically a mirror for yourself is what it is.

Like if you're if you're running at the highest of your ability every single day, your business is going to be doing well. If your business is struggling though, I guarantee there's some spots where you're struggling in your life. And so we want to give you the, I guess it's the four ways that we have to absolutely hold yourself, five ways that we have to hold yourself accountable. And the first one, let's just dive straight into it. Let's give you the meat and taters everybody. Is number one, it's so simple, but people, this is so profound to them when we dive into it. Number one is just act like it's a job, right? If you treat it like it's a hobby, it's going to pay you like a hobby. One of the things that's mind blowing to a lot of people is that whenever somebody works from home or they have

their own business, one of the first tips that I give them is act like you're going to leave your house to go to work because it just puts you into a different state. And what do I mean by that? If you're going to be going to the office and you need to be there at 9 a.m., you're going to wake up at whatever it is, 7, 7.30. You're going to go through your morning routine. Maybe hopefully have a meditation routine,

some type of morning routine. But even if you don't, you're still going to wake up and you're going to shower and get yourself dressed. And you're going to have a meditation routine, some type of morning routine. But even if you don't, you're still going to wake up and you're going to shower and get yourself dressed. And you're going to have a start time that you start working. You have a time that you stop working. That's just the way that it is. And so when I say act like it's your job, you need to act like it's actually your job and take the shower, get dressed. Because I've found, I've done it before. We've both worked from home for decades now, over a decade. And I found that if I stay inside of my shorts and my... If I could work out in the clothes that I'm wearing to work, I'm probably not going to be as productive as I could be. But if I dress,

and I don't say get a suit and tie on, but at least put on some jeans, put on a clean shirt, put on some socks, just get yourself, fix your hair, do everything. If you're at least, you know, put on some jeans, put on a clean shirt, you know, put on some socks, you know, just get yourself fix your hair, do everything. If you at home, do your makeup, make yourself feel like you're going to be leaving because it mentally I feel like it clicks a switch in your brain, where you're like, Okay, now I'm going from being at home to now I'm going to full on work mode. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, I talked to people that and by the way, if've talked to people, uh, that, and by the way, if you've done this, this is no judgment at all, but you know, there's something to be said about this of like, you know, having on the, you know, uh, the, the dress, you know, really

dressing up for work, but just from the waist up, because that's all people can see on zoom, right? It's like doing the zoom call without any pants on. Um, and like I said, there's no judgment around that, but you know, you might feel like you're fooling other people, but the most important person, um, that you don't want to fool is yourself. You know, you, you, you want to, you want to feel good when you're showing up, you know, and that also like another thing I'll just like add in here too, as an example is prepare your desk space, you know, like the last thing that you want to do is, you know, be on your computer in bed or, you know, not be like being, you know, more, a more relaxed place versus like a place where, you know, that you really need to show up.

And, um, and that's why I think like, you know, just preparing your place where you know that you really need to show up. And, um, and that's why I think like, you know, just preparing your desk, you know, I call it the dojo, right? It's like when we step into our, our, our dojo, it's like, okay, it's work time. It's game time. This is where I'm showing up the best version of me. So I think those are some great points. Yeah. And, and I mentioned it real quickly, but when I said a few minutes ago, I have a start time and a stop time. What I mean is that you have your money making hours is what I call it for people that we coach. There's times when the only thing that you should be doing is, you know, actually making money. And so you need to have a start time and a stop time. That would be, okay, let's say I start work at 9am and I. and I stop work at 6 p.m. That means that you need to

hold yourself accountable to work starts at 9 a.m. and I get done at 6 p.m. and I will not do anything else between that time. That is what I do. That is my money-making hours. And so that's part of acting like it's a job, but it also flows perfectly into our second tip, which is protecting your time. There's a lot of challenges when you work from home. What's really, really odd. And I don't know if anybody's been noticing this now, especially people from working from home with all of the stuff that's happened with COVID, but with the people that we've coached for years, it's really odd how many people will hit them up in the middle of the day and ask them to kind of do like their bitch work. Like they'll be like, Hey, can you go pick up my laundry? It's going to be closing at three o'clock. And it's like, you'll, and then people will actually

go do it for them. And I'm like, no, like your, your mom wouldn't call you if you worked at AT&T and be like, Hey honey, the laundromat's about to close. Can you go pick up my clothes? Like that, that wouldn't be something that would even pop into someone's head. And so you treat, it's not that you, you treat people how they treat you. You teach people how to treat you is really what happens. So if you're working from home, if you have your own business and someone calls you at noon and asks you to do something for them, the answer, unless it's an absolute emergency, is always going to be no. Because you have to protect your time because that is your business. That is what makes you money. And so protecting your time

is absolutely huge for so many people when you're running your own business and working from home. Yeah. And one thing to just to echo there is when you're protecting your time, it's, it's just, it's important to it. Like we call it holding that time sacred. It's like, if you're planning, if you're treating it like a job and you know, you're, you're like, you know, I'm going to be working, you know, seven, eight hours today. And this is where I'm going to be working. Now, the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur and being a business owner and having a flexible schedule is that you do have some, some flexibility on where you're, where you put your structure. You know, it's not an invitation to just work when you feel like it.

That's the, that's the biggest challenge, which we'll talk about here in a second. But you know, when it comes to protecting your time, like I, I, uh, ever since I moved out here, I'm like five minutes away. I live on an Island, you know, five minutes away from my parents. And my dad is retired. He's got nothing going on. So except he, he goes boating. So he's like, Hey, you know, now that you're working from home all the time, do you want to go fishing today at like, you know, two o'clock? And I'm like, dad, like, yeah, when I when I say I'm working from home, I like I'm literally working, you know, it's, you know, but having said that, there's also times where as an entrepreneur, it's like, you know what, I do have two hours that I could make up later, but actually make that up later. So, you know, if there is something that is either an emergency or something that you really want to do, not saying that you can't do it. It's just, you better do, do what you promised yourself you would do later on in the day. You got to make up

those hours. Exactly. Ask yourself if you've earned it. Have you earned that time? If for me, as much as I love fishing, if someone called me up in the middle of the day and my business didn't have the month it was supposed to last month, I'm going to say no, because I need to hold myself to that level of accountability. There was a time, thinking of this actually, when we were back in Cutco, you and I, I went on a trip to Jamaica and literally the week-long trip, I was 23, 24 years old.

I went on a trip to Jamaica and I skipped the trip because my business was not where I wanted to be at that present moment. Like, are you holding yourself to that level of accountability? Because that, at that moment, is when you will succeed.

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were so amazing that he invested $250,000 into the company. So Buttercloth is offering our listeners 20% off your first purchase. All you have to do is go to buttercloth.com slash dial to receive 20% off your first full price purchase. Go to buttercloth.com slash D-I-A-L. So that's the second one is to protect your time. Dean, throw us into number three here. Yeah. So the third one is to use a calendar and actually schedule yourself.

So it kind of feels like protecting your time, but this is protecting your time is more of like a defense using a calendar and actually scheduling yourself is the offense. This is the intention. This is how you actually decide how you're going to make an impact in your business, how you're going to hit those goals this year, you know, how you're going to, uh, you know, put more money in your bank account, make a bigger impact on the people that you serve, right? Everything that goes along with that. And, you know, just want to, and this, we're not going to go into like too much detail on exactly how to like, you know, use a calendar or schedule yourself. But I just think it's really important

that as you're, you know, planning out your schedule is reminding yourself why that's important. So, you know, for example, you know, if you have an appointment with yourself, if you put in your calendar to, you know, to time block one hour of prospecting, you know, prospecting in any business is, you know, probably the most important thing you could possibly do, because without prospecting, there is no prospects and without prospects, there are no customers or clients. Yeah. And it's also probably the thing that people don't want to do most of the time as well. You know, most people, it's the most important thing, but it's also the people like nobody wants to just prospect all day long, but go, sorry, go ahead. I just have to put that in there because that's

why it ends up being so hard is because it is not the easiest thing to do. It's a lot easier to go, Oh shit, I need to do my laundry. You know, that's, that's such a great point because, and this is, this is the reason why people miss this appointment with themselves because it's like, and I know I've done it before and if I've done it, chances are you've done it, Rob. And if you've done it, chances are everybody else that is listening has done this at some point where you're like, yeah, I'm going to block off an hour for prospecting. And what do we do? We missed that appointment, right? We don't show up.

We don't do the prospecting. We end up finding something, you know, that seems to be more enticing or seems to or we convince ourselves that it's more important when in reality prospecting, to be honest, is probably the most important thing you could possibly do be doing. But think about it this way. Would you ever miss an appointment with somebody that was maybe the number one employee in your company, right? Somebody like the most important person in your company, if they wanted to have an appointment with you and you know that by having that appointment, it was going to create so much success and so much impact on your business. Would you miss that appointment? Probably not.

But the reality is that you are the number one employee in your company. So why would you miss an appointment with yourself? If you put in your calendar that you're going to do something, and especially as important as prospect something, and, you know, especially as important as prospecting, why would you ever miss that appointment? Yeah, it's so important. And I think that that's actually, you know, just, just even a simple tip of just using a calendar period. You know, there's so many people just don't even use calendars, they just, they don't use their phone calendar that you and I use paper calendars, because that's

what we've always done. Like, it's just easier put it on paper and see it and be able to work through it that way. But just using a calendar, you know, and having some goals of the top three things that need to be accomplished for the day and putting them into your calendar and saying, I'm not going to stop working until these things are done or until my stop time at six o'clock happens or whatever it is for you. And that's also a super easy segue into tip number four, which is, you know, most people say, okay, I work from nine o'clock until six o'clock. So as long as I'm just working through there, that's usually, I'm going to be good. Right. But there's a difference between being busy and being productive. And people don't

tend to think about this. They're just like, oh yeah, you know, I was on the computer all day. And, and, and so like, you know, I was doing all the stuff that I needed to. And it just like, oh yeah, you know, I was on the computer all day. And, and, and so like, you know, I was doing all the stuff that I needed to. And it's like, no, you really weren't because what you were supposed to be doing, if we go back to prospecting is you were supposed to be prospecting is what you were supposed to be doing. But then you thought to yourself, huh, I'm supposed to be prospecting at nine. You know, I have been wanting to learn how to overcome objections a little bit more. So maybe I should YouTube how to overcome objections. And then instead of prospecting for an hour, you watch YouTube videos on prospecting for an hour. And I know there's people out here already smiling

because they're like, oh shit, that's me. Right? And then you call that work and it's not work. It's just you trying to deflect actually being busy or being productive by being busy. Oh yeah, I'm going to deflect my... Basically what you're saying to yourself is I'm going to deflect my actual putting in work to try to pretend like I'm working. And then you just keep yourself busy for 8, 9, 10 hours a day. And you're just searching through and watching YouTube videos on how to get better. Or you're reading a business book and telling yourself that you're being productive when in reality, you're just keeping yourself busy. So the difference between

is busy is just doing just busy work, right? Just kind of doing things and nothing is actually getting you from point A to point B, which is, you know, most important part of your business is money in your business's bank account. Productive means that you've got a hit list of things that you're doing. Number one, two, three, four, five for the day. And you're going down the line and you're knocking out the most important things and making sure they get done versus, you know, just searching through YouTube or reading a book and pretending like you're actually doing what you need to do to move the needle in your business. Oh man, I'm laughing because like, dude, I, like we've all been there, right? You know, everybody wants to be their own boss, but nobody wants to be their own employee. Right. Because

it's, it's, it's, it's not easy because, you know, in order to be a leader in our business, we also have to just embrace the suck. We've got to, you know, like imagine it. If you go back to that, that I think prospecting like this, this is probably the number one out of all the people that we've coached. Like this is the number one thing that people avoid, like just, just calling it for what it is. And imagine if you were paying an employee to prospect for you, but instead they were watching YouTube videos, what would you do? You'd probably fire them. Right. So it's like, you know, like everybody wants to be their own boss, but nobody wants to be their own, their own employee. And so the most

important thing of being an entrepreneur, being a leader, being a business owner is you've got to be willing to step outside of your comfort zone and really just embrace the suck. That's what it all ultimately comes down to for sure. Yeah. That's such a good point. If you had a, if you had an employee that was spending their, their time watching YouTube videos on prospecting every single day, you'd fire them. So then ask yourself the question, what I'm doing right now, would I fire myself if I was my own employee? And if you would, you should probably stop doing it and figure out exactly what it is that you need to do. Another key that just goes along with that, it pops into my head is ask yourself the question, is what I'm doing right now getting me closer to or further from my goals? Ask yourself that 50 times a day. And I guarantee

you'll start to throw away the things you don't need to do anymore. When you're sitting there and you're watching YouTube and you're like, is this getting me closer to or further from my goals? And you're like, well, I do need to set up five appointments today. And this isn't actually getting me to set up appointments. So, all this isn't actually getting me to set up appointments. So, all right, this is getting me further from my goals right now. Then what do you do? You just cancel it, you do something else.

And so it really comes down to making sure that you hold yourself to that standard. And then the last tip, the fifth tip, is to surround yourself with people who will hold you to a higher standard than you will hold yourself to. And this is one of the important things of, you know, when you work from home, it can be difficult. Like the thing about it that was

always easy with you and I, and now that we run businesses together before we were doing that, we were still talking pretty much every single day, multiple times a day sometimes. And when I would hear that you were working, it would make me be like, I need, I need to actually go do some more work too. Cause Dean's working. So I should be working. And then I'm sure if there were times where I was, you call me and I'm like, yeah, I'm just getting done at the gym and now I'm going to go to work. You're like, oh my gosh, I need to get my stuff together. I didn't go to the gym today. All right, maybe I should schedule a gym later. It's like, you have to have people that raise you up. Then also find, see if there's a community of entrepreneurs. See if there's a community in person in your area or a community that's online

that you can join, that you can be a part of, that are going through the same things that you're going through. Because then it makes it easier where you can go, if you're a, I always go back to it, if you own an HVAC company, are there Facebook pages of people who have HVAC companies where maybe they're dealing with the same struggles that you are and just being in a Facebook group and being able to ask the questions and be able to scroll through and see what they're talking about would also help you.

So one of the big things is just make sure that you're surrounding yourself with people that will hold you to a higher standard than you're holding yourself to. Yeah, and the whole idea behind that is like the law of proximity, right? It's like, you know, if the five people that you spend the most time with are millionaires, guess who's going to be the sixth. And it also works in the opposite way.

Like, you know, if, if the five people you spend the most time with are drug addicts, guess who's going to be the sixth. And so it's just that that's the nature of it is what we, who we surround ourself with is also something to protect. It's something to hold sacred. So really being intentional about the communities that you're a part of. And by the way, like another thing too is when it comes to like joining communities, whether it be on Facebook or, you know, I think most, most communities nowadays are virtual, but anytime that you're in a group of, of people,

it's so easy to want to be the smartest person in the room, but you know that you're in the wrong room. If you're the smartest person there, it feels good to the ego, but it's, there's a long-term consequence of regret there because you're going to wish that you surrounded yourself with people that held you to a higher standard and, you know, and really just allowing yourself to feel the discomfort of being pushed to your highest potential. And, you know, the, the benefit of that is so that you don't have to feel that pain of regret. Now there is a pain in that moment, right? It's the pain of discipline, the pain of just embracing the suck, but it's a temporary pain.

You know, when we, when we just embrace the suck and we do the thing that we need to do in that moment, it's a temporary pain. But if we push it off and let it sit in the, the, the, the land of tomorrow where everything's going to get accomplished, right? Then tomorrow comes and then it's just another tomorrow. But you know, if, if we don't experience the pain of, But, you know, if we don't experience the pain of the discipline in that moment, we're going to experience the long-term pain, the long-term suffering of the regret of not doing it. It's just like, you know, it's kind of like going to the gym. You know, very few people like are looking forward to going to the gym. It's like, oh, I can't wait to like, you know, really push myself and, you know, have a painful workout. Right. But everybody loves having already had a painful

workout or a really tough workout. And so you've got to pick your pain. Are you going to pick the pain of the discipline and just embracing the suck in that moment, the short-term pain, or are you going to pick the long-term pain of regretting that you didn't take action when you should have? For sure. It goes back to the phrase, you know, where it's like, Hey, you know what? Hard work is hard. Do you know what else is really hard? Being broke. So you get to pick your hard. Do you want being broke and that feeling of hard, or do you want it of like putting in the hard work and getting what you want? I don't know about everybody out there, but I want to work hard. I would prefer that one and have no regrets.

So that's what we got for you for holding yourself accountable into the highest standard. Number one, act like it's a job. Don't treat it like a hobby. Act like it's a job. Because if you treat it like a hobby, you get paid like a hobby. Number two, protect your time. Make sure that you're protecting it and holding that really sacred. Number three, make sure that you're using a calendar. Make sure that you're using a schedule, reminding yourself

of why those things are important to you. Number four, make sure that you're being productive and not just busy. And number five, make sure that you're surrounding yourself with people who hold you to the highest standard that you possibly can and possibly hold you to a higher standard that you'll hold yourself. So that's what we got for you for today's episode. If you actually want to learn even more from Dean and I, we're going to be running a seven day, a free seven day coaching challenge which starts this Monday. And if you want to join us and learn from us of how to start and grow a coaching business from start to finish, or if you already have a coaching business,

you want to add extra income on top of it, go to thecoachchallenge.com. Once again, it's thecoachchallenge.com. Dean and I will be going live every single day, Monday through Sunday next week inside of a private Facebook group. And once again, it is absolutely free. So that's what we got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it with someone that you know and love. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it shmish. Make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.