The framework looks at two kinds of expectations:
Outer expectations come from other people. A venue needs your promotional materials by Friday. Your producer is waiting for your vocal tracks. Your fans are expecting the livestream you announced.
Inner expectations are the promises you make to yourself. You plan to practice three times this week, finish your artist bio, send a fan email, or spend Saturday applying for grants.
According to Rubin, the way we respond to those two types of expectations places us into one of four tendencies:
Upholder
Questioner
Obliger
Rebel
Over the next four weeks, I am going to look more closely at each one and explore how the right kind of accountability can help you work with your natural tendencies instead of fighting them.
We are starting with the Upholder because that is the first one, AND it is my own tendency, so I understand it pretty intimately.
An Upholder generally meets both outer and inner expectations. Upholders usually follow through whether the promise was made to another person or only written on your own calendar or to-do list.
That may sound like the ideal situation, but Upholders have their own set of problems.
We can become so committed to doing what we said we would do that we forget to ask whether it is still worth doing. We continue down the same path dutifully, blind to the big picture or the data.
The weekly task stays on the list because it has always been on the list. We continue posting on a platform that is no longer reaching the right people. We keep attending an event, maintaining a system, or creating a piece of content because stopping would feel like breaking a promise.
This is one reason accountability is still valuable for Upholders.
1. A group can help an upholder decide whether a task belongs on your list at all
For an Upholder, the most useful accountability may not be someone asking, “Did you do it?”
It may be someone asking, “Should you still be doing it?”
A supportive group can help you step outside your own head and examine the commitments you have collected. Other musicians may notice that you are spending hours creating content for a platform that brings you no listeners, while the fan emails that receive heartfelt replies keep getting postponed.
This is the most underutilized part of having an accountability group for the upholder.
And then there are the common reasons that accountability is helpful, even for an upholder. While making a promise to yourself is powerful for upholders, what's even more powerful is doing it in public.
2. Publicly stating the goal makes the promise feel concrete
Upholders are already motivated by commitments, but writing the goal down where other people can see it adds another layer of clarity.
Instead of vaguely planning to work on your release, you might declare that you will choose the final song order and send the tracks to your mastering engineer by Thursday.
Now you know exactly what you promised yourself, and you have a specific point when you can report back.
Inside the Female Musician Accelerator, members can post their weekly goals and return on Friday to share what they completed. That simple rhythm helps an Upholder honor the promise she made at the beginning of the week.
3. Sharing wins gives you evidence that your effort is adding up
Upholders can be so focused on the next item that we barely acknowledge what we finished.
We check something off and immediately move to the next task.
Posting your wins each week forces you to pause long enough to recognize that you sent the email, booked the show, finished the application, or finally chose the photos for your website.
The win does not have to be huge. Seeing those smaller commitments completed reminds you that you are keeping your word to yourself and putting real pieces of your music career in place.
This is also built into FMA because I know how easy it is to forget what we accomplished while staring at everything that still needs attention.
Sometimes accountability helps us follow through. Other times, it gives us permission to stop doing something that is no longer a good use of our limited time.
The weekly goal setting and wins areas I mentioned are already part of the Female Musician Accelerator and women use them every week. I love reading them and celebrating with them - we even highlight wins in our weekly Sunday Spotlight newsletter!
But...here's what's coming next - an additional layer of accountability that that I'm super excited about.
Starting in September, annual members will also have access to accountability groups where they can clarify what deserves their attention, state what they plan to complete, and get support from other women who understand how much they are balancing.
These groups will be hand-picked by me because I know each of our members personally. In my experience, this matchmaking process creates incredibly valuable groups who stick together and support each other long term.
If that sounds like the kind of support you've been craving (whether you're an upholder or one of the other 3 tendencies), you can learn more about Female Musician Accelerator and the perks of the annual membership here:
We've been helping all levels of female musicians get more done in less time and stay accountable to their music goals since 2015!
Next week, we will talk about the Questioner and why “because an expert said so” is rarely enough to get her to take action.
Always in your corner,
<3 Bree
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