Why You Struggle with Accountability and How to Actually Change
By Steve Smith
One of the reasons many people fail to achieve their dreams or even things that are important to them is lack of accountability. They are simply not taking responsibility for their choices or lack of action on things that are critical to their success. Sound familiar? It’s one of the main reasons I do what I do. I provide that missing accountability factor so business owners can break through the circumstances that hold them in place. But my holding them accountable to do what they say they will do is a short term fix. The real challenge is to learn to be accountable to themselves!
Being in business can be very liberating. You run your own show. You make the decisions about what you will do. You reap the rewards of your success. But there is another side that’s not so liberating. Much of the time you operate alone. You may not always be confident about the decisions you must make. And when failure strikes, the results are all yours as well. This is where lack of accountability can create a mindset that takes away your control, limits your optimism and prevents you from coming back from the brink.
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What causes us not to be accountable?
Throughout our growth years, we’ve always learned to be accountable to someone else. As young children, we must do what our parents tell us or punishment might befall us. As students, we must do what our teachers tell us or our grades might be affected. As employees, we must do want our bosses tell us or our jobs might be in jeopardy. Our understanding of being accountable for our actions is driven by our need to comply with the demands of others. No one shows us how to be accountable to ourselves, right?
While lack of training in being accountable to ourselves may be one element, another may be our own resistance to calling ourselves out on the decisions and choices we make. When we avoid being accountable, we make a conscious decision not to do something and then another decision to downplay the important of not following through. Done repeatedly, we develop a habit of convincing ourselves that not doing what we say we will do has no real consequences. This level of avoidance and denial, to the contrary, has real severe consequences on our ability to maintain trust with others and a stable level of conviction within ourselves.
Even when we know we are not accountable, we justify it
By the time we realize that our own level of accountability has not only affected our jobs or businesses and the trust we need from others has dwindled, we may feel the need to defend our own shortcomings as a matter of pride. We may even go as far as blaming others for the things that did not happen because we did nothing to make them happen. Most of the people I work with know what the right thing to do is. They understand why it’s important to do certain things and they realize (intellectually) what will happen if they don’t. Even with all this awareness, they still chose to avoid being accountable to themselves. So they call me in hopes that being accountable to someone else will turn things around.
What to do if you struggle with holding yourself accountable
If being accountable is what’s getting in the way of your success, recognize that you can reverse this bad habit. It won’t happen overnight but it will happen if you are willing to change.
First, recognize that the reason you choose to do some things and not others is because of your perception of reward or consequence; success of failure; love or hate. These are all emotionally based outcomes that affect your willingness to do what you know is right, even if you aren’t motivated to do it. If you change how you think about what you must do, your ability to change your behavior will follow.
Be conscious of what you are committing to. Some of the problem with accountability stems from overextending yourself which gives you ‘permission’ not to do the things you agreed to because you find yourself overloaded.
Since many of us have been conditioned to be accountable to others, set up other areas to be accountable to. If keeping appointments is difficult, use a calendar to lock them in. In fact, using a calendar for all of your committed activities (even tasks you do for yourself) is a great way to learn to hold yourself accountable. Finding a colleague with similar shortcomings and an equal desire to change is also a great way to learn to be more accountable. This is called a buddy system.
Start writing things down. Keep a journal, a log or any kind of paper planner to write down the things you have agreed to do. Do this for things you plan to do for yourself as well as what you have agreed to do for others. Set specific follow up times to sit and review what you have done and what is left to do. There are numerous phone and tablet apps to help you do this but I believe that keeping it simple is the best way to instill a new behavior. Putting things in writing given them more importance and a way to be reminded later of what you committed to.
Get in the habit of placing deadlines on everything. Without deadlines, things usually get pushed aside for more immediate things that pop up. When this happens, you will likely attend to what is urgent before you work on what is important. Urgent always finds a way to override important. Be careful with scheduling activities too tightly. Give yourself room between activities and tasks for a break. Sometimes, 10 minutes can make all the difference when it comes to staying on track.
Finally, give yourself permission to fail. Sounds odd especially when running a business. People equate failure with some sort of financial loss or other damaging setback. But in our daily lives, we fail to accomplish all sorts of things we attempt to do or tell ourselves we must do. Use failure as a tool for learning about yourself and changing how you decide on commitments, actions, expectations, etc.
Changes habits requires being intentional with commitment and practice
Learning to hold yourself accountable takes effort, focus and above all a commitment to change. If the success you seek is meaningful enough, the change should be worth the effort. Once you become more confident about your ability to set goals, complete agreed upon tasks/ activities or show up for appointments and actually accomplish what you set out to do, the mental and emotional feelings will provide the motivation to keep perfecting your ability to be accountable to yourself.
If all else fails, you can always call to find out how my coaching could help you change your accountability mindset.
About the Author:
Steve Smith is an experienced business & executive coach and President of GrowthSource Coaching based in Orange County, CA. Steve works individually with business professionals who want to achieve top tier effectiveness in the organizations they run. Steve graduated from Frostburg State University with a degree in business management. In his spare time, Steve writes articles from a variety of business publications, travels with his wife on his motorcycle and cares for his adopted greyhound.
Steve Smith is an experienced business & executive coach and President of GrowthSource Coaching based in Orange County, CA. Steve works individually with business professionals who want to achieve top tier effectiveness in the organizations they run. Steve graduated from Frostburg State University with a degree in business management. In his spare time, Steve writes articles from a variety of business publications, travels with his wife on his motorcycle and cares for his adopted greyhound.
