Why You Shouldn’t Go On Your Self-Improvement Journey Alone
By: Jari Roomer
Tags: Self Improvement, Lifestyle, Self, Advice, Productivity

A few days ago, I received an email from one of my readers who indicated having trouble with consistently implementing even the smallest good habits in his life. However, unlike many, this man also understood the main reason why he was having such a hard time with being consistent…

He was going at it alone — and had no one to share his self-improvement with.

This is not something that’s uncommon. Many others who are on their journey of self-improvement and achieving ambitious goals have trouble when they’re going at it alone. It leads to loneliness and lack of accountability.

According to Jordan Peterson, author of the book ’12 Rules of Life’, we are much more likely to take better care for others than for ourselves. In fact, we let ourselves off the hook much quicker and easier compared to letting others off the hook.

When a loved one asks us to help them eat clean, stop procrastinating or go to the gym five times per week, we do so consistently. We check on their progress, make sure they don’t fall off-track and regularly ask them good questions.

However, when it comes to our own goals, habits and objectives, we are much more likely to quit early, procrastinate or slack. And that’s why we need others to support us on our journey of self-improvement and goal achievement.

Why Going At It Alone Doesn’t Work

We need other people to succeed — it’s as simple as that. Even the biggest introvert on the planet needs the support, guidance and accountability of other people. I consider myself as more of an introvert than an extrovert, but I’ve found out that too much isolation leads to lower productivity and less joy, while surrounding myself with inspiring people actually helped me accelerate my personal- and business growth.

When we try to go at it alone, we set ourselves up for failure. With no one watching our progress, actions and goals, we are much more likely to slack, procrastinate and make undisciplined decisions. It’s when we know that other people (whether colleagues, friends or followers) are ‘watching’ us, we raise our game.

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You will have days where your discipline and motivation fades — and that’s when you need other people to support you and hold you accountable to keep you on track.

You will have days in which you are stuck, overwhelmed and can’t see the right next steps anymore — that’s when you need other people to guide and mentor you.

You will have days where you ‘won’t feel like it’ — and that’s when you need a system of other people around you to keep you from slacking.

And, you will have days in which you feel lonely and misunderstood — and that’s when you need like-minded people around you.

When you go at it alone, you’ll never experience the success generating synergy of 1+1=3, as you’ll always stay at a ‘1’ — no matter how hard you work. That’s why I decided to write about the four levels of surrounding yourself with others so that you can set yourself up to succeed.

Level 1: Getting A Mentor

The first step you need to take in order to surround yourself with other people and thereby increase your odds of success is getting a mentor. You need people in your life that have already achieved what you want to achieve, so that you can learn from their wins and failures. This will save you months or even years of hard work and frustration.

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When you want to figure everything out by yourself, you’ll be in for a long rollercoaster ride filled with ups, but primarily downs.

Your mentor could be someone you meet in real life (such as a senior colleague, paid coach or member of your mastermind group) or someone who you’ve never even met in real life. He or she could be an author (whether alive or not), Medium writer, self-development speaker or inspiring figure that you follow.

Closely watching what he or she says — and especially what he or she does — can help you enormously in reaching your goals. In fact, I’ve learned the majority of my most powerful business and self-help lessons from mentors that I’ve never even seen in real life or aren’t even alive anymore.

All in all, you need one or multiple mentors that have already done what you want to achieve so that you can truly study them (literally all of their material, moves etc.) and avoid the mistakes they made in the past. This is probably one the most important steps in reaching higher levels of success.

Level 2: Getting An Accountability Partner

As soon as you’ve set a goal, decided on a new habit to implement in your life or made other plans for self-improvement, you need to get at least one accountability partner to make sure you (1) won’t slack, quit or procrastinate and (2) massively increase your odds of success.

Personally, I have multiple accountability partners in my life. For example, two of my mastermind members (more about that later) hold me accountable for my progress and achievement of my 2019 goal of earning $50,000 in profit with my online business.

Each week, I share my progress, results and changes in strategy. They ask me questions about why I changed strategy, what things are and aren’t working and, if necessary, why I didn’t achieve my weekly or monthly goals.

These guys won’t let me off the hook. When I come with a weak reason or excuse for my lack of progress, they’ll tell me. And that’s exactly why I am more consistent and productive, and make faster progress towards my goal than ever.

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I simply don’t want to lose face in front of these guys. I don’t want them to think of me as a procrastinator, an imposter or a slacker. Rather, I want them to see me as someone who’s crushing it, who will be successful and who walks the walk.

In fact, humans do anything to increase and preserve their identity and status towards other people. When others are watching, we bring our A-game to the table.

However, when no one’s watching, we are usually the first to slack off and watch Netflix instead. We don’t care as much about what we think of ourselves as about what other people think of us. That’s why having an accountability partner works so incredibly well — And this is why Jordan Peterson is right.

Therefore, pick one or more ambitious and inspiring individual(s) that will support you and hold you accountable during the process of achieving your goals. Make sure that your accountability partners truly don’t let you off the hook and share your progress on a regular, consistent basis

Level 3: Starting A Mastermind

The third level of surrounding yourself with people to increase your odds of success is to start (or join) a mastermind. Essentially, a mastermind is a group of like-minded people who regularly meet (whether online or offline) to discuss goals, ideas or problems that they’re facing.

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Personally, I’ve been in a mastermind for a few years now, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made. Together with two other friends, we meet on Skype every Monday to discuss our weekly progress, set new weekly goals and talk about improving our strategies. Doing so has given me many insights that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

Furthermore, this mastermind group serves as accountability on steroids. Because we meet every week, I’m forced to be consistent on a weekly basis. And, because it involves a group instead of just one person, I’m even more motivated to walk my talk. We don’t want to lose face in front of one other person, let alone when there are multiple others.

All in all, my weekly mastermind sessions have helped me enormously in building new habits, improving myself, growing Personal Growth Lab and achieving my goals. Because of the group synergy, I gain multiple viewpoints on certain topics, which makes for the richest insights and solutions. On top of that, it serves as accountability on steroids.

Therefore, create your own mastermind or look for ones to join. If you have a hard time with this, check out self-development Facebook groups for example.

Level 4: Becoming A Mentor

They say that in order to attain mastery you need to learn from someone who’s ahead of you (your mentor), learn with others who are at the same level as you (mastermind group and accountability partner) and teach someone who’s not as far as you. And that’s where becoming a mentor comes in.

When you become someone’s mentor (whether that’s in-person or through Medium, YouTube or podcasting), your personal growth will skyrocket to a whole different level.

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More than ever before will you feel accountable for doing the right things, as you’ll feel the need to live more congruent with your roles and identity. When you know others are looking at you — and not in a controlling way, but in an inspiring way — it serves as an extra motivating factor to improve, grow and do better.

Through mentoring others, you ‘sharpen the saw’ of your own habits, actions and behaviour. You’ll gain the most complete picture of the topic as you’re teaching it to others in a simple, clear and effective way.

And you don’t have to be a master or an expert on the topic in order to become someone’s mentor. All you need to be is just a few steps ahead of the person you’re mentoring.

If you run an online business generating $3,000 / month you can be one hell of a mentor to someone who’s just starting. In fact, you can even be a better mentor than someone who’s earning more than you, as you can probably still better relate to your student.

All in all, find someone who you can help to elevate to the next level in a field where you are already at a certain level. This will bring a whole new flood of motivation, clarity and high performance.

Now Do It

Change only happens when you take action. Therefore, as an action point, I highly encourage you to find at least one accountability partner for your most important goal.

You’ll see that this already has the potential to skyrocket your personal performance, help you be more consistent and massively increase your odds of goal-success.

To Your Personal Growth,

Jari Roomer

Founder Personal Growth Lab

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