The Power of the $50 Fine!

A few weeks ago I shared with you the details of our Accountability Group and my own personal goal (click here for the details). 34 days ago I pledged my first goal - to wake up every morning by 7:00am. Why? I felt that it would force me to make better use of my day instead of working late into the night, like I regularly do.

So how have I done so far? For the first 25 days of the challenge, I had not achieved my goal. In fact I am embarrassed to say that after offering up excuse after excuse, I had wiggled out of my original goal and negotiated with the group to allow me to change my goal to a later time of 7:30am. In those first 3 weeks I only managed to meet my new revised goal 3 out of 7 days a week. Pretty pitiful, if you ask me. After all, what’s so hard about waking up at a certain time?

Fortunately for me, the others in the group weren’t exactly falling over themselves in achieving their goals. We took turns on the weekly conference calls alternately poking fun at each other for our miserable efforts and encouraging each other to do better the next week. And yet, we had not imposed the dreaded $50 fine on anyone.

Week 4 into the challenge, one of us earned a solid “A” from the group for achieving her goal that week. Suddenly, it was a reality check for the rest of us. As one member said, it was time to fine the members who had failed to achieve their goal that week; if only out of respect for the one member who did set a goal and achieve it. 4 out of 6 members were fined that day. Needless to say, the very next day I was up at 7:30am!

What had changed? I could not justify the fine to myself at a time when I am under a very tight budget. Could I really afford to lose $50 a week just because I was not disciplined enough to wake up at 7:30am on weekdays? No, I could not!

This was supposed to be an Accountability Group, yet previously the group had not held the members accountable for their actions or lack thereof. By one person rising above the pack and the others finally held accountable for their actions, suddenly the stakes were higher.

On the next weekly call, everyone reported success on their goal. Clearly we had not done each other any favors by not implementing the fines immediately. We would all have made more progress if the fines had been implemented the very first week.

We would love to hear from you. Do you have any accountability measures that have worked for you!