How to Successfully Be Personally Accountable Online

Accountability: anything or anyone that helps us gain mental leverage to achieve the results we desire.

 —The Accountability Stop

In another post we talked about public accountability in real life (IRL). To me, sharing goals publicly online is different. So let’s look at that virtual goal-sharing. These might take a few different forms:

• The project itself is online. Maybe you write a blog, draw a webcomic, or post indie music review videos. Your work product is online for others to read and share. Engaging online with others is integral to the project.
• Our process is offline, such as book-reading or marathon-training. We are either checking in online with a daily, “yes I read” or “yes I ran.” Or we might track our progress more specifically, as in “25 pages read” or “3 mile run today.” 
• We post in-process photos online, such as art or craft projects in partially-finished stages. Or we may only share the end result.

Virtual Feedback

Sharing online generates different feedback from in-person public accountability. 

• Feedback is quantifiable. We might talk to ten people in real life about our project, but we may not remember all those conversations two weeks later. Online, the number of likes, comments, and shares is documented for us and everyone else to see. Each of us needs to determine whether that would be a good thing for our motivation. 
• Depending on how we share our project, comments online may be either from people we know, complete strangers, or a mix. Some people prefer to see whether their work has an impact on people with whom they have no connection.
• Our posts can generate reactions long into the future, unless we remove them, of course. We should consider whether we want our project to live online indefinitely for possible future comments. 
• Online accountability can turn into in-person accountability the next time we see anyone we’re friends with online. We might want to rethink online accountability if we don’t want that to happen.

Options for Engagement

Like IRL public accountability, much depends on our personality. Some differences when we’re accountable online:

• Introverts who may be disinclined to announce a goal or project at a party may feel more comfortable posting online about their project. We can tell ourselves that a post will get buried in the avalanche of new posts from everyone else on earth. When someone does reply with a like, it’s a pleasant surprise.
• It’s up to us how much or little we engage after an initial post. If we want to make a discussion out of it, we can respond to every comment with additional comments and questions. If we prefer to stop with the original post, we can “like” others’ comments and leave it there. 
• We can use a pseudonym to mask our online project from people we know if we don’t want to talk about it in real life. Often, though, it may be enough to not tell our friend network. For instance, anyone can create a project using a new YouTube channel and not link it to other social media.
• We can limit our posts to groups or people in our niche. We could post about running only in a running group, for instance.

I’ve mentioned before that I use online accountability a lot. Sometimes it is under my name, other times a pseudonym. Sometimes I link to my public social media, other times not. Personally, I like that freedom to choose how my project gets shared.

Results May Vary

If we post a project or progress toward a goal online, typically responses aren’t overtly negative. However, an article on Hersuitespot noted that sometimes people aren’t interested in seeing us change our lives while they still feel stuck in theirs. The bigger and more audacious our goal is, the more likely we may encounter doubt, if not downright discouragement from others. It may come in the form of a kindly or practical concern :

“You want to write a book? What about the accounting degree you just got?” 

“You want to buy a franchise? Where will the money come from?”

Sometimes “help” isn’t very helpful.

Improve Your Interactions

A few suggestions on ways to avoid negative feedback online:

• Naturally and of course, we should always be polite and positive ourselves if we want polite and positive feedback.
• We should avoid only posting our highlight reel online. This is especially true when the goal only benefits us—such as losing weight or renovating a house.
• Try to be helpful or seek help. We can offer advice to others based on our experience so they can learn from our mistakes. We can post questions about our process and what direction we might try next. Creating a conversation can be more beneficial for both our readers and ourselves. 
• Use our niche. Using a niche online group, like a writers forum, can also improve the feedback we receive, since everyone in the group should be there trying to achieve a similar goal.

Online accountability is powerful, especially if we need a kick in the pants at the beginning of our project. But we should be thoughtful about how we’re using it.

What’s Your Account?

Have you posted online for accountability? How did it sit with you? Will you do it again?