Build an Accountability Practice
Key Summary
Accountability doesn't have to be work-focused to be powerful.
The smallest step in the right direction is always enough.
Done is better than perfect. You just need to get started.
Showing up even when life gets in the way is part of the practice, not a failure.
3 goals: 1 work, 1 personal, 1 giving back. Small commitments with a big impact.
How It Started
When I left my full-time role to pursue self-employment and Project 50, one of the things I missed most was having a team around me.
Not the meetings or the structure, but the feeling of having people to show up for and having something to be accountable to.
At the time, I was really struggling to write the Project 50 articles. My perfectionist mindset kept getting in the way, and they always felt like so much effort compared to the actual skill learning. I know, I know. The irony isn't lost on me.
What I needed wasn't motivation. It was a structure that would make it harder to keep putting the difficult things off.
But I also knew that if I was going to build something, I didn't want it to be just another work-focused accountability group, which, in my opinion, Western societies place far too much emphasis on already.
As individuals, it is easy to fall into this trap. Work has very clear, tangible outcomes, deadlines and priorities, whereas things in your personal life have a lot more flexibility and choice, and rarely come with anyone to be accountable to. True success for me is being intentional about where I spend my time and energy across all elements of life, not just the professional ones.
Trust me, as a career mentor, I know this all too well.
I've seen how much purpose work can provide. But I've also seen what happens when it becomes the only thing. At the end of your working life, the things that tend to matter most aren't just your credentials. They're the connections you made and the life you built alongside it.
That's what I wanted the Accountability Crew to help with.
I wanted to build something that made all of us more intentional across all areas of life. Not just work, but personal goals and giving back to our relationships and wider community too.
The idea of the Accountability Crew had been sitting in my head for a while. It was a conversation with a long-term friend and mentor, John Hibbs, a fellow startup founder I met through Lunch Club, that made it real.
I was talking him through the idea when he challenged me to get it online and ready by the end of the following week.
I said, rather optimistically, that I'd have it done by the end of the day. Famous last words.
But somehow, I did it.
That tight deadline changed everything. The most valuable thing it taught me was that done is better than perfect.
I'd been overthinking it, when really all I needed was 3 things. A way for people to sign up. A way for me to know who was coming. A link to send them. Everything else could come later. This was my MVP (minimum viable product).
John was the first to join, and quickly, I had 3 or 4 members coming regularly each week, all through word of mouth.
The Accountability Crew has been running every Tuesday morning at 9 am since 2023, rarely missing a week.
One of the most memorable sessions was the one where we had a member joining from New Zealand late in the evening and another dialling in from the East Coast of America at 4am. Yes, for real, 4am. I couldn't believe it.
I absolutely love it when new people join. There's something really special about meeting people from completely different walks of life, from all over the world, who share the same desire to show up for themselves each week.
Growth mindset is what connects us, and the diversity of ideas and experiences is what makes it so interesting.
If you're curious about joining, it's free, and you can find out more at accountability-crew.com.
The Experience
The format is intentional, and that's very much by design.
Every Tuesday morning at 9am, a group of us jump on a 30-minute Zoom call.
Sometimes it's just me. Sometimes there are 10 or 12 people. It really does vary, and people dip in and out as and when they need to, which I really like.
There's no pressure to show up every single week, although most people do.
The first 10 minutes are for introductions and catching up. New members introduce themselves, regulars share how their week has been.
The next 10 minutes are for reviewing the goals we set the previous week. Each member shares how they got on with their 3 goals, which they'd posted in the Slack channel after the last session.
We talk through how the week actually went versus what we'd planned.
The final 10 minutes are for setting new goals for the week ahead. 3 goals, every week:
A work goal
A personal goal
A relationship or giving back goal
You don't need to have a goal in mind before turning up. Often the session itself gives you the space and time to think about it.
It's amazing how many resources get shared within the community too, whether that be new books, new tools or fresh ways to approach a problem.
After the call, everyone posts their goals into a Slack channel to commit to them publicly. If for whatever reason someone can't make a session, they can update it there and still stay a part of the practice.
The less friction there is to showing up, the more likely you are to do it.
What I Took Away
The thing that has surprised me most is how much people get done when they have even a small amount of accountability.
Over the years I've seen members:
Go swimming for the first time in years after struggling with body confidence
Consistently show up to exercise classes after years of stop-starting
Post on social media for the first time after putting it off for months
Start businesses, sell businesses, write books and change jobs
Move house
Find a part-time job as an actor
Create their first piece of artwork
Reach out to a family member they'd fallen out with
Write a letter to their parents to thank them for everything
Find a dog-sitting job abroad for a week just to have a mini adventure
And so much more
For me personally, it's given me the accountability to pursue Project 50 and write the articles. Without it, I'm not sure they'd have happened.
What connects all of those things is that they started as a single goal, written down on a Tuesday morning.
At one point I ran it on a voluntary donations basis, asking for just £5 if members found it useful. I made a couple of hundred pounds, which genuinely surprised me.
There's also something to be said for committing even a small amount of money to something. It keeps you more accountable to showing up.
I wanted to keep it accessible to anyone regardless of their financial background, so the voluntary model felt like the right fit. Running it does come with costs, and the donations genuinely help keep it alive. I'm really grateful for every one of them.
It wasn't about the money, but it told me something important about the value people were getting from it. It's something I've thought about turning into a proper business, and that little experiment felt like an early proof of concept. For now though, I'm keeping it deliberately low-key. The moment it starts feeling like work, I think I'd lose what makes it special.
I think what makes the Accountability Crew different to other accountability groups is that it's not dependent on you having completed your goals.
It's more about the intent and showing up for yourself each week. Even if none of the goals have been hit, members still turn up, talk through what got in the way and reset with a renewed sense of purpose.
That, for me, has been the most inspiring thing. Not the big wins, although there have been plenty of those, but the showing up. Week after week, for yourself.
I've also noticed how much of an impact carving out that 30 minutes has had on my own weeks. When I look back at the last few years, a lot of the bigger decisions I've made started as small steps I took in the Accountability Crew.
At its core, it comes down to one thing. Write down the smallest step you could take this week in the direction you want your life to go. And then show up and do it.
Special Thanks
To John Hibbs, for being the person who challenged me to stop thinking and start doing. The Accountability Crew wouldn't exist without that conversation.
To every single member who has ever shown up on a Tuesday morning, whether once or every week for the past 3 years. You are the reason it works.
To the member who dialled in from the East Coast of America at 4am. You know who you are!
Build an Accountability Practice
Key Summary
Accountability doesn't have to be work-focused to be powerful.
The smallest step in the right direction is always enough.
Done is better than perfect. You just need to get started.
Showing up even when life gets in the way is part of the practice, not a failure.
3 goals: 1 work, 1 personal, 1 giving back. Small commitments with a big impact.
How It Started
When I left my full-time role to pursue self-employment and Project 50, one of the things I missed most was having a team around me.
Not the meetings or the structure, but the feeling of having people to show up for and having something to be accountable to.
At the time, I was really struggling to write the Project 50 articles. My perfectionist mindset kept getting in the way, and they always felt like so much effort compared to the actual skill learning. I know, I know. The irony isn't lost on me.
What I needed wasn't motivation. It was a structure that would make it harder to keep putting the difficult things off.
But I also knew that if I was going to build something, I didn't want it to be just another work-focused accountability group, which, in my opinion, Western societies place far too much emphasis on already.
As individuals, it is easy to fall into this trap. Work has very clear, tangible outcomes, deadlines and priorities, whereas things in your personal life have a lot more flexibility and choice, and rarely come with anyone to be accountable to. True success for me is being intentional about where I spend my time and energy across all elements of life, not just the professional ones.
Trust me, as a career mentor, I know this all too well.
I've seen how much purpose work can provide. But I've also seen what happens when it becomes the only thing. At the end of your working life, the things that tend to matter most aren't just your credentials. They're the connections you made and the life you built alongside it.
That's what I wanted the Accountability Crew to help with.
I wanted to build something that made all of us more intentional across all areas of life. Not just work, but personal goals and giving back to our relationships and wider community too.
The idea of the Accountability Crew had been sitting in my head for a while. It was a conversation with a long-term friend and mentor, John Hibbs, a fellow startup founder I met through Lunch Club, that made it real.
I was talking him through the idea when he challenged me to get it online and ready by the end of the following week.
I said, rather optimistically, that I'd have it done by the end of the day. Famous last words.
But somehow, I did it.
That tight deadline changed everything. The most valuable thing it taught me was that done is better than perfect.
I'd been overthinking it, when really all I needed was 3 things. A way for people to sign up. A way for me to know who was coming. A link to send them. Everything else could come later. This was my MVP (minimum viable product).
John was the first to join, and quickly, I had 3 or 4 members coming regularly each week, all through word of mouth.
The Accountability Crew has been running every Tuesday morning at 9 am since 2023, rarely missing a week.
One of the most memorable sessions was the one where we had a member joining from New Zealand late in the evening and another dialling in from the East Coast of America at 4am. Yes, for real, 4am. I couldn't believe it.
I absolutely love it when new people join. There's something really special about meeting people from completely different walks of life, from all over the world, who share the same desire to show up for themselves each week.
Growth mindset is what connects us, and the diversity of ideas and experiences is what makes it so interesting.
If you're curious about joining, it's free, and you can find out more at accountability-crew.com.
The Experience
The format is intentional, and that's very much by design.
Every Tuesday morning at 9am, a group of us jump on a 30-minute Zoom call.
Sometimes it's just me. Sometimes there are 10 or 12 people. It really does vary, and people dip in and out as and when they need to, which I really like.
There's no pressure to show up every single week, although most people do.
The first 10 minutes are for introductions and catching up. New members introduce themselves, regulars share how their week has been.
The next 10 minutes are for reviewing the goals we set the previous week. Each member shares how they got on with their 3 goals, which they'd posted in the Slack channel after the last session.
We talk through how the week actually went versus what we'd planned.
The final 10 minutes are for setting new goals for the week ahead. 3 goals, every week:
A work goal
A personal goal
A relationship or giving back goal
You don't need to have a goal in mind before turning up. Often the session itself gives you the space and time to think about it.
It's amazing how many resources get shared within the community too, whether that be new books, new tools or fresh ways to approach a problem.
After the call, everyone posts their goals into a Slack channel to commit to them publicly. If for whatever reason someone can't make a session, they can update it there and still stay a part of the practice.
The less friction there is to showing up, the more likely you are to do it.
What I Took Away
The thing that has surprised me most is how much people get done when they have even a small amount of accountability.
Over the years I've seen members:
Go swimming for the first time in years after struggling with body confidence
Consistently show up to exercise classes after years of stop-starting
Post on social media for the first time after putting it off for months
Start businesses, sell businesses, write books and change jobs
Move house
Find a part-time job as an actor
Create their first piece of artwork
Reach out to a family member they'd fallen out with
Write a letter to their parents to thank them for everything
Find a dog-sitting job abroad for a week just to have a mini adventure
And so much more
For me personally, it's given me the accountability to pursue Project 50 and write the articles. Without it, I'm not sure they'd have happened.
What connects all of those things is that they started as a single goal, written down on a Tuesday morning.
At one point I ran it on a voluntary donations basis, asking for just £5 if members found it useful. I made a couple of hundred pounds, which genuinely surprised me.
There's also something to be said for committing even a small amount of money to something. It keeps you more accountable to showing up.
I wanted to keep it accessible to anyone regardless of their financial background, so the voluntary model felt like the right fit. Running it does come with costs, and the donations genuinely help keep it alive. I'm really grateful for every one of them.
It wasn't about the money, but it told me something important about the value people were getting from it. It's something I've thought about turning into a proper business, and that little experiment felt like an early proof of concept. For now though, I'm keeping it deliberately low-key. The moment it starts feeling like work, I think I'd lose what makes it special.
I think what makes the Accountability Crew different to other accountability groups is that it's not dependent on you having completed your goals.
It's more about the intent and showing up for yourself each week. Even if none of the goals have been hit, members still turn up, talk through what got in the way and reset with a renewed sense of purpose.
That, for me, has been the most inspiring thing. Not the big wins, although there have been plenty of those, but the showing up. Week after week, for yourself.
I've also noticed how much of an impact carving out that 30 minutes has had on my own weeks. When I look back at the last few years, a lot of the bigger decisions I've made started as small steps I took in the Accountability Crew.
At its core, it comes down to one thing. Write down the smallest step you could take this week in the direction you want your life to go. And then show up and do it.
Special Thanks
To John Hibbs, for being the person who challenged me to stop thinking and start doing. The Accountability Crew wouldn't exist without that conversation.
To every single member who has ever shown up on a Tuesday morning, whether once or every week for the past 3 years. You are the reason it works.
To the member who dialled in from the East Coast of America at 4am. You know who you are!