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In this short episode Tom and Michael share two effective strategies to help keep you accountable to your goals.  --- Transcript   Michael: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined as usual by   Tom: Tom Schneider. And today we're gonna be talking about accountability and how to hold yourself accountable. So let's jump into it.   Michael: All right, Tom, New Years just around the corner, everybody loves making new year's resolutions. How do you hold yourself accountable?   Tom: Well, Michael, it's specific on what I'm trying to hold myself accountable. I like the idea of escrow challenges. And now I'm not talking about real estate escrow, I'm talking about taking some funds that I have, that I respect and want to keep and giving them to a trusted friend and telling them Hey, friend, if I don't do this, by then I want you to donate to this to something I don't want to be donated to like something I don't agree with at all. I read about this, there's a couple of apps that do this, but you could just do this with a friend.   Michael: Oh, that’s so good.   Tom: Let's say like, I really support killer whales, or like whales, you know, and then they would have to donate it to like a whale hunting company. That doen’t doesn't work. And I might rework this a little bit I might workshop this a little.   Michael: I just love like, you would go on to like whale killer like whale hunting company dot com and let's see, like, what's, what's their what's their nonprofit numbers, counted on my taxes.   Tom: Lowering the whale population. It’s big plankton that runs that company.   Michael: It’s Plankton from SpongeBob. It's No, but I totally know what you mean. Like, if you Yeah, if you really like dark chocolate, and then you would donate to a milk chocolate company.   Tom: That's right. That's right.   Michael: That that's a that's a really, that's a really good incentive. I see like it almost as doubly incentivizing yourself, because there's that loss aversion where you're losing money. And then there's also that I'm donating to now actively a cause that I don't believe in or to a company that I disagree with. So I think that's double ending it. That's a really good tactic.   Tom: I guess an easier way I could have just gave an example is not the whale hunting company. Maybe like there's like something political you don't agree with, like you have money that's donating to that cause like, right, I don't want you know, you want to be able to protect that. So that's going to give you some ripe incentive to not do that. So anyways, that's my…   Michael: I love that. Is there anything in particular that you're working on holding yourself accountable to right now?   Tom: I think like a lot of people like, you know, trying to get fit being quarantine pudgy bodies, like, you know…   Michael: The quarantine 15.   Tom: Exactly, yeah, so I have a good friend from high school who sees he's holding some money from me right now. And I need to go get rid of that quarantine 15.   Michael: Right on. I love that.   Tom: Yeah, What about you Michael?   Michael: I am a big fan of the accountabilibuddy. And so I developed an accountability buddy partner. And so we have a weekly standing meeting. And if one of us doesn't show up, we'll do 110 bucks. And so we text each other what we're gonna do for that week, and then when we circle back the following week, we see if we got it done, and there's really no consequence for not getting it done, but maybe there should be, but I really like this, this escrowing idea, I think it's not me saying you have to adopt, yeah, my own life, because that's really good.   Tom: I like your understanding of it. And that, you know, yeah, there's the version, you know, aspect of it, plus the good of you actually doing it, it's like you're hitting on all cylinders of motivation. I think another thing that's similar to both of these is putting it down on paper. So I do a monthly not a journal, but like, I have this template every month that I fill out just on some private Google site, I do a little review on what I want to get done this month, what got done last month, it's almost like if people have done stand up meetings before where you're touching on, okay, you know, what's, what got done, what got in the way, what's going to get done this upcoming week, it's that same exercise but doing it for yourself. And I find that a monthly cadence is a good way to do it. I've actually, I was looking at it, I have all the records from back and I started doing this in 2010. So I have a decade of every month, it's it's really funny to look at because I mean, you change as a person over 10 years, and then you get a little little diary of yourself and some other stuff that I put in within that template not only kind of the goal stuff, but I put a little gratitude stuff and said okay, like what I'm thankful about, you know, myself for like my family, all that kind of good stuff. It's, it's honestly a good exercise to do. And it's entertaining to look back over time. And I found that Google Sites is a good platform to do it just because you don't have to worry about them going out of business, their platform, you know, is is there. And then you have this almost like a time box. That's not a time box. What's it called?   Michael: Time Capsule?   Tom: That's a word Yep. of yourself. So again, my the way that I structured is what I want to do this month. How did I do against things last month, and then some general kind of like thoughts that I'm things I'm thankful for and a little bit touchy feely. But I think that stuff is important for being a 360 human.   Michael: Yeah, I call clocks time boxes.   Tom: Yeah, yes. Something else I've done in the past, which I really like journaling, too. So that really when you said that that hits strikes a chord with me that something else is actually giving yourself a reward for doing completing a task or a goal. They think so often, a lot of us are running so hard and like, we set a goal for ourselves, and then we accomplish the goal like Okay, great, what's next, especially the people that like, are super high achievers out there. And so we have to stop and enjoy the win. And I think when you teach yourself almost like Pavlov's dog to enjoy, and you get a reward for doing something that that makes doing the thing, oftentimes a lot more enjoyable. And I know it is for those around me in my personal life. So like when you get a property acquisition done or sell a property or get a property rehab, like celebrate without with those in your life. Enjoy, kind of enjoy that plateau a little bit before you start the next portion of the climb.   Tom: Fantastic. We have a special treat amongst us our podcasts here every I think like 20, 20,000 we all do a celebratory shot so got to celebrate the wins. Man, it's life is tough. Challenges are tough. You got to really appreciate when things are rolling, In this short episode Tom and Michael share to fun ways to help you stay accountable to your goals.  --- Transcript Michael: Yeah, break it up into many milestones, it becomes so much more easier and a lot more enjoyable. Well, that was our episode, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Feel free to leave us a rating and review whatever it is listen your podcast. We'd also love if people could share in the comment section, what things they use to keep themselves and those around them accountable. And we look forward to see you on the next one.   Tom: Happy investing.