Ok, so who is getting up at 5am to workout? The alarm goes off and often that snooze button is all too easy to press. Back to warm cozy covers and to dreamland it is! How can we pull ourselves out of the cycle of making a commitment only to be pulled back under the covers leaving disappointment to greet us later?

One answer is accountability. If you make an appointment to meet with a personal trainer or even a buddy at the gym you will be less likely to forgo your resolve to exercise. No one wants to pay for a session that they didn’t benefit from by training or who wants to be the person to leave a friend to workout solo when they were expecting company and support?

Check out these statistics from The American Society of Training and Development:

If you hear an idea, there’s a 10 percent likeliness of completing a goal. If you decide when you will do it, there’s a 40 percent likeliness of completing a goal. If you plan how you will do it, 50 percent. If you commit to someone else you will do it, 65 percent and get this: If you have a specific accountability appointment with the person you’ve committed to, there’s a 95% likelihood of completing your goal!

Just showing up is often all the encouragement a workout partner needs. Let’s inspire one another by setting goals together and making a decision to follow through knowing that the finish line is always worth the willingness and determination it took to get there.

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).