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Maybe you want to lose 25 pounds. Or write a best-selling novel. Or get that promotion at work. Whatever your dreams might be, you might feel stuck or can’t seem to make much progress toward achieving them. You keep breaking commitments you make to yourself, then finding excuses about why it’s not your fault. You have a slow metabolism. You’re too busy taking care of the kids to write. Your boss doesn’t like you. If this sounds all too familiar, it’s because you see yourself as a victim of circumstances and feel like you don’t have a choice. What you need is a strong dose of accountability which really means you do what you say you’re going to do. It’s simple, but not easy. If it were, people wouldn’t so often fail to keep commitments. And that’s unfortunate, because accountability can totally transform life. It makes everything possible. Breaking The “Victim Loop And Choosing The “Accountability Loop”
Be a victim no more. “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”
When things happen to you and you don’t seem to have a choice in the matter, you are a victim. But the unsettling truth is people usually choose to be victims. It’s a mindset.
You Must Take Charge Of Your Life When we stop being a victim, we must clarify what real success looks like. How could we possibly move toward a goal until we have identified what that goal is? Take a cue from Jim Carrey: when he was a struggling actor in the mid-1980s, he wrote himself a check in the amount of $10 million “for acting services rendered.” Once we have defined and refined our picture of success, we cam put together a list of accountable actions that will take us there. But beware of one of the surprising pitfalls of accountability: perfectionism. If we wait until we have perfected something, we will never move on. Remember what John Updike said: “Perfectionism is the enemy of creation.”
Recognize Our Current Reality Call it whatever it is. Until we know what we are dealing with and are willing to just state it sincerely, we can’t do anything differently. Sometimes, it just looks really big. When we shine the light on it, it turns out it wasn’t as big as we feared. So, pull out the flashlight and take an objective and unbiased look at where we really are. The challenge is to attain a neutral frame of mind, marked by compassion, openness, and sincerity. We must not judge or let resentment or guilt take over. Our best thinking brought us to this point. If we had known how to do any of this better, we would have done it better. Our current reality is a great setup for learning.
Own Your Part In order to change the reality we live in, it needs to be our reality. Since we are the creator of the original situation, we can create a different one. And consider this: when we own something, we are much more likely to respect it. When was the last time you took a rental car through the car wash? When we are working on a project with other people, assume 100 percent of the ownership. Don’t become a power monger, or a martyr who takes all the blame, or a sidestepper who takes none of the blame. Find a good balance of responsibilities, while keeping in mind that at the end of the day, what needs to be done, needs to be done.
Give The Gift Of Forgiveness Once we have recognized the reality of what we are dealing with and owned the part we have played to get there, forgiveness is our way out. Not an excuse to do something that didn’t work again, but an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and give it another shot. Forgiveness is not a substitute for corrective action, but a way to come to the action in a more creative, caring way.
Practice The Art Of Self-examination This is the turning point. From here, we can start creating our new life. It’s time to get rid of our automatic pilot syndrome — a term for thinking, doing, and/or feeling the same things over and over and start making deliberate, healthful choices. We may feel that we have no control over our circumstances, and it’s certainly true that we can’t control other people. But what we can control is how we respond and react. Ask yourself: how might I have created, promoted, or allowed the situation I am in? If we are honest, we will see that we did play a role in our current situation, even if we merely sat back and let it happen.
Be A Master Learner Seize the opportunity and let ourselves be transformed. Think differently. If what we did in a previous situation didn’t work, the process of learning guarantees we will proceed differently next time. Be aware, however, of the traps that get in the way of learning: perhaps we feel attached to the old way, or we tried it before and failed, or we feel we have to have absolute proof it will work before we try it. Be completely open to learning. Leave your ego at the door. To be a master learner, we must believe that we know nothing. In this way, the “old dog” can learn new tricks.
Take Action
There is a direct relationship between our life as a whole and the actions we take every hour of every day. To like our life we have to like each action individually. It’s important to take small, manageable actions that moves us beyond our comfort zone but doesn’t paralyze us. Moving toward our goal, reaching out for help when needed, and having a recovery plan is vital. If there’s one certainty in life it’s that things will not go according to plan! So figuring out what we’ll do when we get off course, and by recommitting ourselves to our goal, we will be able to recover from our mistakes. Mark Samuel and Sophie Chiche are leaders in the Personal and Organizational Accountability Movement, firmly committed to inspiring excellence using the principles found in their book.
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The Path of Accountability; 