The Work at Home Millionaire Journey

Things will change for you when you learn to be accountable to yourself. For most of us, this takes a lot of work. We live our whole lives being accountable to others. As kids, we’re accountable to our parents and then our teachers.

When we graduate into adulthood, we become accountable to our boss. We get our work done so that we can keep our jobs. We’re driven by an external stimulus. How many of us get something done before its deadline or due date? Okay, there are a couple of you out there. But still, you are driven by the fact that someone other than you is requiring you to complete your task by a certain time.

This is a big part of the reason most people who start a work from home business fail. Most everyone starts their work from home business while still working full time for someone else. The problem this creates is that you don’t have to do what it takes to succeed.

Whether your family eats isn’t dependent on your business. You know you need to set up your website, and your autoresponder, and your traffic generation methods. But no one’s giving you a deadline to do any of these things. In fact, no one’s requiring that you ever do any of these things. And so usually, you don’t.

To combat this eternal “I’ll get to that tomorrow,” I was advised to join a mastermind group when I first started out. Being accountable is much easier, I was told, if you have a group of people to be accountable to.

In the spirit of Napoleon Hill’s advice in Think and Grow Rich, the modern day mastermind group usually consists of a group of dedicated entrepreneurs who exchange ideas. Another function of the mastermind group is often to share your goals with each other and hold each other accountable for achieving those goals.

It’s a great concept, and I’m not at all knocking the benefit of the mastermind group. But, for the purpose of being accountable, they don’t solve the problem. Here’s why.

The problem is we need a boss and a deadline. Your mastermind group isn’t your boss. And, if you don’t meet your self-imposed deadline, there’s no consequence. Of course, the intended consequence is that you must admit to your peers that you’ve failed. If all goes right, to avoid that embarrassment, you’ll dutifully meet your goals.

The truth, however, is that if you can’t motivate yourself to take action, then a group of people you generally don’t even know that well can’t possibly motivate you to the success you’re looking for.

If you’re not doing what you need to, you’re either lying to yourself, making excuses, or failing to see what you need to do. You’re going to pass these same lies, excuses and ignorance onto your mastermind group.

Your mastermind group can’t help you here. You’ve got to learn to be accountable to yourself. There’s no shortcut or way around it. I’ll tell you how I learned self-accountability tomorrow.

JENNIFER HERNDON works at home with her kids. She has been enjoying the time freedom and financial rewards of working from home for over 11 years. Jennifer’s passion is empowering you to success through a positive mindset and consistent action. Become accountable for your own success by starting your one year success plan today. Discover the Seven Simple Success Steps for free in Jennifer’s new mini-course.

Filed under: Goal Setting, successful home business on June 11th, 2009