Welcome to reThink Your Perspective’s blog. Helping you to unlock your potential, empower your mindset, create productive habits, and boost your motivation. Today’s instalment looks at accountability.
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Who Are You Accountable To?
Accountability is not responsibility.
As an employee, you may be responsible for a specific outcome. But it is your manager who is accountable to the CEO to ensure the outcome is achieved.
However, if you are an entrepreneur, you must be accountable to yourself and your customers and supply chains.
Being accountable to yourself is much easier to achieve if you are aligned with your purpose. That which you believe in and will do what it takes to achieve.
Purpose?
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Your purpose is the thing that provides real clarity and direction in your life. It is different to your goal, or the thing that you want. Purpose drives the passion you need to achieve your goals. It ensures you stay focused on your goals. Helps you develop resilience.
The more aligned with your purpose, the more self-aware, physically and mentally healthier you are.
Your purpose is the reason you are here. It is a combination of your passion, mission, profession and vocation. All of these are provided by what you love to do, what you are great at, the fact the world needs it, and you can be paid for it.
Your purpose will drive your goals. And your goals will be focused on achieving your purpose.
What Is Accountability?
The dictionary definition of accountable is:
“required or expected to justify actions or decisions”
Accountability is being held accountable.
It is following through with your decisions. Having the discipline to give yourself a command and follow it. These decisions and commands you have made in order to reach your goal and fulfil your purpose.
Of course, you can choose to not follow through. To do the things that you want to do that satisfy you in that moment. But ultimately these will not satisfy you in the long run because your conscious mind has seen where it wants to go. Avoiding the things you need to do will not get you to the person, place or thing you want to be, do or have.
To get to where you want to go, you must hold yourself to account.
How Do You Be Accountable To Yourself?
Being accountable is built-in to your actions when you employ a growth mindset. This allows you to be open minded, to see the endless possibilities from your actions. This in turn feeds your desire to complete the activities you need to do, rather than doing what you want to do.
Being accountable is being aligned with your values. Integrity, loyalty, authenticity and self-honesty are but four of the values that will allow you to hold yourself to account. Even when your paradigm is fighting you the whole way!
Each time you step out to do things that scare you, it is so easy to reject your calling. To step back from the terror barrier and fall back to your comfort zone. But to create a masterpiece of your life, you must be fully involved and more than interested.
Are You Interested Or Committed?
If you are only interested, you will only do it when it is convenient. You will let your paradigm win the rest of the time and let the thing you want to do fall by the wayside. Getting excited about the goal or dream you have is easy. Maintaining the enthusiasm and commitment over the long haul is often difficult.
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However, if you make a committed decision to get the thing that you want… You will do what is needed no matter what. You must make a conscious, active effort to transform that motivation into tangible results. Your enthusiasm and commitment will last much much longer, and you will hold yourself to account to get everything you need to do done.
When you are accountable you step into your own power.
However, when you are accountable to yourself, there is always the chance that you will let yourself off the hook. Make up an excuse or reason to not do the thing you need to do and do something else instead. And once you do it once it becomes a slippery slope…
BUT! There is something you can do that will ensure you follow through with your actions even more successfully.
Get An Accountability Partner!
An accountability partner is the third spoke of your guaranteed success wheel. Along with study and visualisation of your goal, an accountability partner will:
- Inspire you to push through roadblocks or past time zappers
- Help ensure you’re on the right track
- Offer positive encouragement that inspires and stimulates you to keep taking action
- Provide alternative perspectives to problems
- Offer creativity and brainstorming to solve problems
- Offer tough love, when needed, to keep you on track
As Bob Proctor once said,
“Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.”
Being accountable to someone helps you stay focused. Instead of losing sight of the necessary steps to move you towards your dreams, you have someone in your corner to keep you on track with what needs to be done. And, at the end of the day, just knowing someone is going to ask how you are doing with a goal or activity can be that extra bit of needed motivation to go and get the action steps done. Regardless of how scared you are!
How Do I Choose An Accountability Partner?
With care! You are going to form a close relationship with this person, so choose carefully. Choose someone you feel comfortable with. Someone you connect with naturally, that you can communicate with comfortably and effortlessly.
They also need to be as committed as you are. You will both serve as each other’s accountability partner, so you must both be as committed as each other. Without commitment, the relationship will lose its value.
Once Chosen, What Next?
For you both to get the most from your accountability arrangement, you need a framework that will help you meet your objectives. This framework can include, but is not limited to:
- Deciding when you will talk. You need a day and time that works for both of you and stick with it. You can also agree on daily check ins, and via what platform.
- The agreement to show up! You must honour your appointments with each other and commit to not having to reschedule.
- The commitment to eliminate distractions during your calls. Having an accessible quiet place. Turning off notifications on your computers and phones. Setting other work aside. All to ensure you are totally present for your partner.
- Setting an agenda. This keeps the calls focused and timely. An agenda can include; a status update (including actions taken, celebrations of successes); discussion of challenges or issues you have come across; clear commitments and action steps to be completed before the next call.
- Having a set time for each person to speak.
- The agreement to be frank and direct. You have to count on each other to be upfront and honest. If you think your partner is making excuses or a poor choice, say so! But you also need to be able to hear hard truths from them as well.
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Accountability Is One Key To Success
Accountability increases your chances of success significantly. Your chances of success increase even more when someone else holds you to account. Most successful people have an accountability partner, and it makes a huge difference to their lives.
If any of this resonates with you then please share your thoughts below. If you want to discuss it further then get in touch today. Either here or through any of my social medias or schedule a call to discuss it with me directly.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope this information helps you understand the need to be accountable for your actions! Be it to yourself, or to someone else.
To your success,
Jaiye
