Accountability from a Rival’s Challenge

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

—The Accountability Stop

Jonas said to me, “You’ll never move.” 

That was all the mental leverage I needed.

It was 2014 and I had lived in my house since 2001. It was a lovely ranch home and I loved it. But I was horrible at yard work and I hated that. The house was in nice-but-typical suburbia. I wanted a different lifestyle. I wanted a walkable neighborhood. I wanted trails, coffee shops, parks, and restaurants nearby. 

I had wanted to move for several years by 2014. But I hadn’t done anything about it. I invited a friend and her husband, Jonas, over for dinner in late 2014. Jonas and I are tacit rivals. We have lots of things in common, but tend to look down on each other’s tastes. We are just enough like each other to not like each other. I wistfully mentioned wanting to move. Jonas said, “You’ll never move.”

Suddenly I had a fire in my gut. I had to move. I found a realtor and bought an urban condo by July of 2015.

Just Watch Me!

As with other accountability techniques we’ve discussed, I had my own reasons to move. I wanted to move. But I wasn’t moving. I didn’t have sufficient mental leverage to overcome my resistance. In this case, mental leverage came in the form of a veiled challenge from someone I have an interest in “proving” myself to. “Just watch me!” I thought, “I’ll show you, Jonas! I’ll move!”

One drawback to this rivalry-driven technique is that we don’t have complete control of when it will happen. It is similar to the secret benchmarking technique, but this one is less controllable and can have strong emotions attached.

In another example, a friend of mine planned to major in chemistry in college. During Freshman year, a chemistry professor said to him, “You might want to consider a different major.” My friend took it as a challenge that drove him all the way through his college career.

Challenge Requested

A rival’s challenge is a strong accountability technique to use for substantial motivation. Can we cause a rival to challenge us and still feel the challenge is organic and real? Below are some suggestions on how we might do this. But beware! Similar to public and internet accountability techniques, this option can easily blow up on us!

• We need someone we think of as a rival. Often they drive us at least a little crazy. We have mental arguments with them when they’re not around.
• This person is preferably outside of our friends, family, and work circles. We want to avoid a rival spreading their opinions about us and creating embarrassing public accountability that could be demotivating.
• When we’re talking with our rival, bring up the goal we want challenged. Unlike most situations where we should state our goal confidently. Be a little uncommitted. We’re trying to elicit a “you’ll never do that!” response. Use the wishy-washy words: might, maybe, someday, possibly, and the like.

With any luck, our rival will respond with the kind of snark that makes us boil inside at just the right temperature for weeks, months, or years of accountability!

What’s Your Account?

Have you ever received a challenge from a rival that you turned into accountability? Do you think it’s possible to replicate that on purpose?