Have you ever considered your journal to be your accountability partner?
After all, your journal is your confirmation of where you are now, where you have been and where you would like to be going from this point forward. It is a road map of sorts, and it can be your guide and help you shape and construct what you envision.
From this perspective, your journal can help you initiate and track change better than any other accountability partner. If you are honest in what you are putting into it, in return it will reflect back to you what is really happening, and it can be your guide in staying true to yourself.
Essentially what is happening is this:
“I wrote this. This is my truth. I want to act in accordance with my truth. I will report back on this truthfully.”
From this framework, the goal of the journal entry is to document whatever you would like to accomplish. In doing this, you are making a commitment to yourself. It can actually help you take control of your action and overcome helplessness and encourage you to bring about the changes you desire.
When journaling this way, keep your journal in a reliable place. That way when you are having a thought that captures your attention, you can document it in your journal. The act of writing this down also invites you to further flesh this out and work through it, and clarify your thinking. Again, you are making a commitment to yourself by doing this.
After you have written this entry, read what you have written. Then make a plan to re-read this entry sometime very soon (perhaps later in the day, perhaps tomorrow or at the end of the week, as appropriate) to evaluate your progress toward your goal.
When you are checking in on this, here are some questions to guide you:
What are you noticing in terms of how you are working toward your goals?
What is going well, and what is not?
Notice your tendencies and other observations, and take notes on this- in your next journal entry.
This kind of objective awareness, honesty, and the fact that you are creating a written record of what is working as well as what is holding you back is essentially an accountability partner like no other. You are accountable to YOU.