When we try to form new habits, we often think that it is just a personal struggle. We tell ourselves: “This is my job, I have to do it myself.” But James Klier reminds us of one important detail: habits are rarely formed solely by internal motivation. Often they are a reflection of the social environment in which we find ourselves.
Friends, colleagues, society — all of them provide us with visible and invisible stimuli. Klier draws special attention to the importance of an accountability partner — a person before whom the condition we have accepted from us becomes more important in itself. As if the habit no longer belongs to us alone, but also applies to someone else.
Klier describes a very interesting example: Two friends agreed that they would go to the gym every day. If one of them missed, the other would automatically receive a monetary reward. In this condition, the main motivator was not money. The publicity and emotional discomfort of responsibility worked much more powerfully. Knowing that someone is waiting for you, that your actions are no longer just your own business.
The role of social control in habits is often overlooked. We think that everything we do is a reflection of our inner will. However, Klier shows how important the environment is. In one study he recalls, participants were divided into two groups: one group was simply told to start exercising, and the other was instructed to report to their partner every week how much they had completed their plan. In the first group, only 35% followed through with the exercise, while in the second group, 95% succeeded. This result clearly shows that even a simple system of accountability, just sharing information, without any sanctions, almost triples the likelihood of success.
It is important to perceive the accountability partner not as a supervisor, but as an equal companion. Psychologically, this creates a situation where our words already go beyond personal boundaries and acquire social meaning. At the same time, the chance of self-justification decreases: when we are accountable only to ourselves, it is much easier to tell ourselves, “I’ll start tomorrow.” But when we know that someone is waiting for us, it becomes much more difficult to say the same thing.
Another important emotional result of this process is the feeling that we are not alone on the path to change. An accountability partner simplifies this path: change is no longer just a personal struggle, but becomes a shared project where we feel a strengthening of identity — you are a person who does what you say.
Claire gives the example of one of her readers who wrote to a friend every day about what she did: how much she read, how she exercised, how much water she drank. This short, informal correspondence had no evaluative purpose. It was just that the friend was reading. But the fact that someone was waiting for this letter was enough to solidify the habit. Klier calls this a “Low-Pressure, High-Visibility” system—an environment where there are no hard demands, but there is a soft social incentive.
The principle of patience and simplicity reminds us once again that habit formation should not rely solely on motivation. According to Klier, success requires a system that works even when motivation fades. Such a system has two pillars: the physical environment and the social space. The physical environment means that the easier it is to access the objects conducive to the habit, for example, when a book is lying near us instead of a phone, the longer the habit lasts. And the social space means that someone cares about our progress and we are more willing to follow the habit.
An accountability partner is part of this second pillar. It creates a behavioral environment where our promises are perceived as more important, and we no longer feel alone in the process of change.
This approach works well not only at the individual level, but also in organizations. For example, employees can pair up and ask each other three simple questions once a week: What was your goal? What didn’t work? What are you trying to do next week? Such conversations don’t create rigid control; on the contrary, they create a culture of support, where mistakes are not seen as punishment but as opportunities for growth.
It’s also important for organizations to recognize those who are particularly good at playing the role of partners. Such partners not only make progress on their own, they also make it easier for others to follow.
The most important thing that Klier teaches us with this system is that a habit is most deeply rooted when it no longer affects us alone. When breaking it means disappointing another person, even in a very friendly way. And this process is based not on fear, but on appreciation and humility. This is where real change begins, not with coercion and effort, but with thinking about others.