English Expressions: Accountability & reaching your goals.

When you say that you'll do something, do you really do it?

If your answer is yes,

then you already know something about today's topic accountability.

And today you're going to learn how to talk about this essential business

topic and learn lots of business English vocabulary about the

theme of accountability. Are you ready? Let's skip. Hi, I'm your English coach,

Christina, and welcome to Business English with Christina,

where you become better at English and better at business by learning

about topics that are important to you, your profession,

and your success and your goals, like accountability.

So what is accountability exactly? Well,

accountability is saying that you're going to do something maybe to

yourself or to other people, and then actually doing it. You know,

you can be accountable to yourself.

That means that you promise yourself that you do something and

you do it,

and you can also be accountable to others. And that means that you promise

someone else that you will do something and you do it.

And it's very important to be careful about

what you decide to be accountable for because after all,

you want to trust yourself and you want other people to trust you.

So if you say that you'll do something,

you want to be sure that you've got the resources, the time, the energy,

the money, whatever, to actually do it. Now,

a lot of really successful business people that I know,

they also know how to hold themselves accountable,

and that means that they have a habit of doing

what they say that they're going to do, setting a goal and achieving it.

Now, what about you?

Do you hold yourself accountable when you set a goal or make a promise?

The reason I ask is because often, you know,

when you hold yourself accountable,

great things can happen. Whether you're holding yourself accountable to yourself

or to other people you know, first,

you're more likely to reach your goals if you are able to get things done,

if you do what you say that you're going to do to yourself or to others,

and that feels great. And it creates a real sense of personal

credibility, meaning that you believe in yourself when you make a promise,

because you know that you will do it and you believe in yourself,

you know that you can get things done,

and you probably also feel more self-respect

because you know that people can trust you and you can trust yourself.

And all of those things make you more likely to reach

your next goal. Now, being.

Accountable to yourself is a good strategy,

but being accountable to others is even better.

I mean, think about it.

Imagine you tell yourself that you will do your next

exercise, your next workout, um, but then you don't, you know,

you say you're going to wake up at 6:00 AM you're going to run,

go outside and run and train for your next marathon,

but then the alarm clock goes off and it's dark and it's cold,

and you, you know, you're like, ah, no, I, I'll do it tomorrow.

No one will ever know,

and no one will be disappointed in you except maybe

yourself. But let's imagine that situation differently.

What if you tell a friend, Hey,

let's meet at the park at six 30 and let's go running together.

Now,

what happens if you don't wake up early,

go to the park to meet your friend,

but your friend is waiting for you in the cold and in the dark to go running?

You know, your friend is going to be really disappointed in you,

and you're going to feel bad because you disappointed your friend.

And that's why having someone to hold you accountable,

to make sure that you show up,

that you put in the work and that you move closer to your goal,

can actually make a huge difference. And I mean,

that's kind of the same thing with the Faster Fluency Conversation Club,

our Conversation Club to help you practice speaking and become more confident.

You've got someone who's waiting there for you. The teacher is waiting for you,

your conversation partners are waiting for you.

Everyone is expecting you to attend those sessions. And if you don't, you know,

people are like, where's, where's Sophie? You know,

we haven't seen Sophie in a while. It's a little worrying.

And that way you know that someone's waiting for you,

you're more likely to do it,

and you're more likely to reach your goals. So whenever you have a goal that is

not easy to achieve or that requires long-term work

and commitment and regularity and consistency to meet it, you know,

having some kind of social accountability can really be the

difference between success and failure,

because social accountability helps because you have a

group or just a friend encouraging you. And these are, you know,

like-minded people, people who have the same goals as you,

people who have the same struggles,

the same difficulties as you because you understand each other and you don't

judge each other. And then you feel accountable to the other person,

but also to yourself.

And you show up and you do whatever is necessary to.

Accomplish that goal because you don't want to let yourself,

or more importantly, you don't want to let others down. And I mean,

plus like just from my experience of learning with other people,

um, training for marathons with other people, um, and, you know,

setting goals like I sound that sounds like a geeky thing to do,

but this is what my friends and I do.

We actually talk about our goals and we check in with each other about our

goals, and it's fun and it's motivating.

Like we go out to lunch together and we talk about this stuff.

So if you're looking for someone to hold you accountable and to help you to

reach your goals in English, to become more confident,

to be more consistent with your practice, whatever it is,

join me for my live free interactive workshop on

January 25th.

And it's a really special one because you will see what it's like inside my

Conversation club and how it can help to hold you

accountable and help you reach your goals in English this year. So

if you want your invitation, sign up to my newsletter, which is, uh,

the link is down below this video.

And I would love to see you in that workshop. Now, as I always say,

if you don't use it, you lose it.

So here's how you can use what you learned today.

Do you have a situation or an activity where you have

someone to hold you accountable? If you do,

tell us about it in the comments. And if you don't,

well maybe tell us what goal or situation you would like an

accountability partner for. I don't know,

maybe you'll find one in the wonderful world of the internet.

And if this lesson was helpful for you, I would love to know.

And there are three ways that you can tell me.

Give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and of course,

subscribe to my channel so that I can continue making business English lessons

for you.

You can go over to the blog post that goes with this video and

go deeper into the topic and explore it a little more

and get ideas on accountability for yourself.

And you can watch this next lesson to solve your work problems

and your English problems with a lesson with a neuro language coach.

That's me. And of course,

thank you so much for improving your English and your business with business

English with Christina, and I'll see you next time.