[afarrell]

I think your URL is a fantastic choice and hints at what a lot of "accountability coaching" really is:

Camaraderie

An easily-imaginable person who acts as a reward model[1] you can imagine saying "yea! Make progress on the thing! You're on the right path[2]! Keep going." When you anticipate [social] rewards for an action, that action is motivating.

If you watch Dr. Andrew Huberman's talks about the roles of Dopamine in the brain, he'll say it is not a signal of reward, but of anticipated reward. It does spike when you recognise a surprisingly strong reward, (like when you hit a jackpot or an unexpectedly interesting HN link) to help you learn to repeat the path to that reward[2], but mostly it signals "Yep, you're on the right path. Now go make that test green".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYylPRX6z4Q

[2] https://deepmind.com/blog/article/Dopamine-and-temporal-diff...