Do you easily stick with your nutrition plan or do you give in to unplanned cheating and frequent excesses? Do you have near-perfect gym attendance or do you often skip workouts? When you do workout, are your sessions a 10 out of 10, or do you have a lot of 6’s and 7’s (or lower)?
Have you ever weighed the consequences of those missed or sub-par workouts? Did you ever add up the calories from all those indulgences or think about how one weekend off the wagon can erase an entire week of work?
What would happen to your results – the increased amount of fat you would burn, the muscle you would build, the strength you would gain – if you finally mastered this whole “fitness motivation” thing and finally stuck with your program consistently without falling off the wagon again?
There are countless ways to increase motivation, but I want to share with you what I believe is one of the best ways to create and sustain motivation, all the way to a full-fledged physique transformation, six pack abs and all.
For over 35 years, I’ve used this motivational force to my own benefit and the benefit of my clients. I’ve always taken it seriously and built it into all my training and coaching programs.
Accountability At Work
When my clients knew they were going to be weighed and measured every week, they worked harder during the week in anticipation of the official Monday weigh-in day!
I also created a 12 week progress chart that measured body weight, skinfolds, body fat percentage, lean body mass, fat body mass, waist measurement, and the change in each measurement from week to week. We took “before” photographs as well.
My local coaching clients met with me in person where they would step on the scale in front of me and I took their body fat measurement with calipers.
We recorded these results and then took a look at the progress and talked about the results. Based on results, we would decide whether any adjustments needed to be made and we set new goals for the following week – in writing.
We wrote down the goal on a copy of the progress chart – it was filled-in in advance as if it were already achieved.
I instructed my clients to post this chart with the results to date and the current weekly goal on their refrigerator where they would have to look at it at least few times a day. Many of them also wrote a new goal card every week with their 12 week goal and their 1 week goal written on it.
For my internet or phone clients, every Monday morning, my clients would email (or back in the day, fax) me their progress chart and sometimes even their entire eating and training diary for the previous 7 days. If they knew I was going to be looking through their journal like a professor at a term paper, I knew they would be sticking with the program better.
The progress chart was held sacred. Seeing those numbers on paper was incredibly enlightening due to the way you could see progress in a graph over time. Everything became tangible. You could hold the piece of paper. It was your report card – your evaluation. It was real.
Did you ever notice how if you had straight A’s on a report card it just drove you mad if you had even a single B on it? Well, I always noticed how my clients never wanted to have a “blemish” on their weekly progress chart. They almost always worked harder knowing this measuring, charting and tracking was going to happen.
On the occasions that people cancelled a session, I always probed into the reason why. Some were legit, most were excuses, but one thing I always noticed is that if someone had a bad week, they wanted to “dodge me” and cancel the weekly progress check-up meeting.
Like I said, they hated having a blemish on that chart or even worse, facing their coach in person without having results to show for the week’s efforts. This is why I liked to stay in touch with them by phone and email throughout the week and confirm my appointments in advance. This keeping tabs on them decreased cancellations and kept them motivated and on track during the week.
Simple motivational concepts, yes, but the results were amazing and the power behind these psychological principles is undeniable.
If you haven’t guessed already, the word for this motivational force I’ve been describing – the weighing, measuring, tracking, keeping tabs and so on – is ACCOUNTABILITY.
This probably resonates with you because you might remember times when you put accountability into action in your life and you were highly successful and produced results at a high level.
Now, I have two questions:
1. Are you currently using accountability to help you stick with your program?
2. If you are currently using accountability and it’s working, did you ever think about the power of having a multi-level “accountability SYSTEM”?
If you’re not using accountability right now in your nutrition, training and healthy lifestyle plan or if you are and you’d like to learn how to multiply accountability and motivation by a factor of 4X, please read on.
Level One: Self Accountability
Accountability is a massive leverage factor in achieving any kind of success, whether in business or in a fitness program, and here’s where it starts: with yourself.
Self accountability, also known as internal accountability, means you set a goal, map out a plan, make a commitment to it and then keep score. You do this for yourself and it’s your choice. No one is pressuring you to do it. (Well, maybe I am “nudging” you a little).
You can become accountable to yourself by:
1. Setting written goals
2. Weighing yourself
3. Measuring body composition
4. Taking body (circumference) measurements
5. Tracking results on a weekly progress chart
6. Taking photographs
7. Creating menu plans or tracking nutritional intake in a journal
8. Creating workout schedules and tracking training performance in a journal
Basically, anything you want to improve should be measured and everything related to your nutrition, training and even lifestyle (hours and quality of sleep, etc) should be tracked in writing (or electronically).
If you aren’t keeping track and staying accountable by using at least 6 out of 8 items in the list above, then this is where you begin.
Level Two: Accountability To Another Person
No one is coming to your rescue. Change starts with you. “If it is to be, it’s up to me.” You have to make that important self commitment.
But once you’ve accepted personal responsibility, you can literally double your motivation with this second step. All you have to do is take those journals and written progress reports and show them to an accountability partner on a weekly or even daily basis.
Your support partners could be anyone – friends, family, siblings, neighbors, co-workers or even your internet friends from groups and forums.
You can also recruit a professional – a coach, trainer or mentor of some kind. Get your partner’s agreement that he or she will hold you accountable for the daily action steps you must take and the weekly goals you want to achieve. They have to hold you to it or they’re not real accountability partners. No “Yes men” for this job.
If you have access to your support partner in person, you can increase the positive pressure a bit by having your partner take your picture, weight, body fat and measurements rather than you taking your own.
Why is this so effective? Well, have you ever heard the saying, “Performance is improved when performance is measured?” It’s a popular maxim in business management circles.
Good managers have found that personal productivity can be increased many times over by measuring and tracking everything, sometimes to the extent of having employees use numerous checklists, reports and even a diary of how they spend their time.
Rest assured, it works in fitness as well as it does in business.
Level Three: Accountability To A Group
Social psychologists have studied group behavior for the better part of a century. Crowd behavior has some interesting dark sides, many of which are far worse than the problem of conformity. But the bright sides of a positive group are stronger and more powerful.
Not only do all human beings have a deep desire to belong and to socialize with like-minded people, there’s a group dynamic that creates a powerful positive pressure that can be applied toward higher levels of achievement. You can take advantage of this positive pressure and social support by joining the right groups.
When discipline is imposed externally and high expectations are set within a group, things get done at a high level. It’s important to understand however, that external motivation will only last as long as it is there.
You will keep your drive only if you are internally motivated, you’ve made the decision to change and improve for yourself, and you are always self-accountable. The external motivation is simply another layer of motivation.
There’s also a motivational ego factor involved that makes you want to push harder when others are watching. It’s even more powerful if there are real consequences, either emotional or physical, for not fulfilling the expectations. You could call it the “Drill sergeant” effect.
Speaking of military metaphors, look at how Boot camp classes and group personal training are still popular after so many years. Consider the leverage that’s created when you make yourself accountable to a whole group instead of just one person.
Not only is your “drill sergeant” instructor watching you, you also know that your peers in your group are watching you. What happens if you stop short or quit in front of everyone? Does the prospect of pushing yourself harder seem more likely?
Think about support groups where participants gather together and must share to the entire group how their week went. What are the emotional consequences of falling behind?
Amazingly, this works almost as well online in virtual groups as it does in person, and ongoing research has continued to confirm that.
Accountability partners and support groups will always pull more out of you. A coach, partner or group will help you raise your standards and see the potential in you that you didn’t even know you had.
After working with any truly effective coach or support group, you will realize that you have been thinking too small and selling yourself short. A group will lift up that positive pressure to a level you never imagined before you immersed yourself in that environment.
And yet it’s possible to take this even further. How?
Level Four: Public Accountability
Go public! By announcing your intentions and posting your results for all the world to see, you add a fourth tier of accountability, that for some people, pushes the motivation to the point of “failure is not an option.”
Why? Because look at the alternative: Losing face in front of others. While this approach is not for everyone, for some people, public accountability clinches the deal.
One of the best examples I have seen of going public was Australian fitness blogger Adam Waters. After several frustrating attempts to complete various physique transformation contests, Adam was sick and tired of being sick and tired… and fat. He decided that as motivational as these transformation contests were, he knew there was another level.
He put the power of accountability to work by taking his photograph every day, writing a blog journal entry and posting it on the web for all the world to see. That took an enormous amount of courage, as his first before photo was taken at a low point in his life, after he had regained all the fat he lost after one of his fitness contest attempts.
The results made him famous. His story was featured on TV, in Men’s Fitness (Australian and US editions) and his real time physique time lapse video had more than 4,000,000 views on you tube -along with the #1 you tube search ranking for “weight loss.” (And that was back in the days when 4 million views was almost unheard of).
To Adam though, all the attention was just a side benefit. The real benefit was that using accountability, he beat body fat once and for all. He went from (in his own words) sick, fat and stupid, to six pack abs, happy and successful.
A word of caution about going public: Psychologists have done some studies about people sharing their goals with others and two possible reasons it might backfire have emerged.
First, as strange as this may sound, setting a goal and then sharing it appears to be accepted by the brain as if you already achieved the goal. There is a release of dopamine, providing satisfaction simply by announcing the goal, but the motivation to actually pursue it is lacking. This doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s a possible risk.
The greater danger is announcing a goal to the wrong people. Sharing your goal with people who are totally supportive will enhance your motivation and provide extra accountability. But sharing goals with people who might doubt you or even ridicule you can, not surprisingly, undermine your motivation.
Only for a handful of people does the negative feedback of naysayers enhance motivation. In these cases, some people get riled up, and say to themselves, “I’ll show them” and proceed to crush their goals, and gain great satisfaction from proving the doubters wrong.
The key is, “know thyself.” If in doubt, don’t share goals with anyone you doesn’t support you 100%. Just quietly get on with the work.
Now, Go Get To Work!
I hope you now see the potential motivational power behind accountability for helping you get the body you deserve. I recommend that you re-read this article, soak in the information about the four levels of accountability and use all the ideas that you think apply to your situation.
Remember to always start with a personal choice and pledge of personal responsibility and accountability to yourself. This is vitally important to support your intrinsic motivation.
If you want a sure-fire way to get motivated this is it. Accountability works.
-Tom Venuto
PS. For the ultimate experience in accountability, join us for the 2026 Burn the Fat Challenge. The next event starts January 1st. Click here to see the challenge calendar.
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