One who has no problem picking up a new habit does not need an accountability group. But this is a rare individual indeed since picking up a new habit is not natural for a person.
But why is it so difficult to start something that has not been your cup of tea so far? The answer is automatism - humans are very good at automation and function as per setup and training. It is very difficult to change how one behaves even if you wish it from the bottom of your heart.
It is common to think that a new way of acting is only a matter of making a decision. A few people have observed themselves long enough to know that it is not so. You can decide but this decision will not hold. Why does it not hold?
The answer is weak will-power or Will to keep it simple. We would like to believe that we have a strong Will but once you have tried to change your habitual reaction to certain comments of your spouse - you know for sure that it is almost mission impossible!
Will needs to be trained. Will is strong when you make a decision and you will ALWAYS carry out this decision. In most cases it is quite easy not to carry out what has been decided, it happens almost naturally.
But how to train the Will? By utilizing someone else's Will is by far the most efficient means. It is very similar when you would like to acquire some knowledge and then you will turn to someone who already has that knowledge. It is possible to struggle by yourself and get your grip on this new knowledge and the same way you can struggle with training your Will. Faster and more practical approach is to use so-called group Will.
It is known that if you are not the one who needs to take action but only to speak then you can keep your Will of speaking steady quite easily. When combining Will of speaking and Will of acting together in a group setting then each one can act for the other as the "speaking buddy" which makes Will-muscle training much more enjoyable and efficient!
It has been a common practice to train yourself new habits if you want to change some parts of your life but you should keep in mind that habits are the enemy of the Will! Habits allow people to maintain their life as it is without the need to use their will. Habits make you an automated living being and weaken your will. Habits should only be trained to increase your will-power and then they should be dropped. Much like in meditation practice where a mantra or breathing rhythm should only be used to stop the internal dialog and then you should let go of the mantra or breathing rhythm. Otherwise you exchange one kind of internal dialog with another kind and wonder why you do not get much of an effect from the meditation.
Another common trap is to use habit stacking technique where for example you already have a good habit of making morning journaling and then you will add on top of that habit also some yoga practices or reading a few pages from a book of interest. It is indeed working but it will make you into a better machine! Yes, more efficient but unfortunately much less fluid and living.
Last year in the Accountability Groups I completed 80 tasks that had been in my housekeeping and family backlog for more than 5 years! One might think that this was an excellent way of getting things done but my aim was to train the Will and as a side-product also close all the open tasks that otherwise will drain my personal power in the background.
Will is something very special because it is so extraordinary. It comes to one mysteriously, for there is no way really to explain how one activates or uses it. But once one has acquired will, and uses it, the results are always astonishing. The only way in which to acquire will is to know that it can be developed.
Founder of .Cocoonity
Join the next Accountability Group to train your Will on 13th of June for the next 8 weeks.