5. “Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to the result.” ~ Bob Proctor
For the past two decades, when the going got tough, it was so easy for me to want to give up.
When I started my private practice about ten years ago, I found marketing myself hard and I sabotaged and returned to volunteering for a local college as a counsellor. I justified it to myself as needing to build more experience. I believed I was taking responsibility and was committed to making my private practice work but I was really working just enough to keep my head above water and at the same time, making a lot of excuses why it wasn’t growing much.
I would say things like “I tried my best but…”, “I don’t know how so…”, “Business is hard… and slow for everyone.”, “Nobody is supporting me… everyone is busy.”. All of these things were only disempowering me, keeping me in the victim position.
Things started to shift for me seven years ago when my daughter was hospitalised for several months. I wish it didn’t take something so drastic to make me realise that I can commit to something if it was important. I’ve learned that if I ignore minor life lessons long enough, eventually a major life lesson will come along and hit me over the head. Life told me,
“No more excuses, take responsibility for your own life!”
After receiving this dramatic wake up call, I finally started to take charge and responsibility for how I dealt with life. I made tough decisions, I learned tough lessons. I took initiative, became proactive and trained to be an advocate-carer.
I was on a mission, I had a purpose.
I realised I had so much energy and focus if something mattered to me. I had access to so much more of my brain capacity and physical endurance if it mattered. I was switched on and tackled one challenge after another.
I owed my daughter this: to be emotionally available, physically present and mentally agile to take care of them. I felt accountable to my daughter. If I didn’t do everything within my power, I knew I’d regret it later.
All this to say having someone to be accountable to is powerful in keeping our word and following through. Having someone I respect there keeps me going when the going gets tough. Where I might give up if I was doing it alone, I wouldn’t with an accountability partner because I’m committed, I don’t want to let them down or lose their respect.
These days I have two accountability partners: one for daily win reporting and the other for daily writing.
The daily wins are very powerful because not only do we report back today’s three wins, we also tell each other tomorrow’s three wins: what we will endeavour to accomplish. When tomorrow comes, we already know what we will be working on.
Accountability partners provide positive pressure to focus on the right actions.
I pour my energy towards those daily wins, knowing that they are my priority and accomplishing those will make me feel amazing. After nearly a year of daily accountability, we’re still going strong, because both of us benefit from it.
More recently, I asked an author friend to be my writing partner. I already knew that they had an established daily writing practice. This has been immensely helpful for me as a novice writer. I see their discipline and consistency to sit down to write every single day. I both admire that and want to emulate that.
They have both done wonders for my consistency and confidence.
How to start an accountability partnership:
Find an accountability partner. Choose someone who you respect so that you wouldn’t want to let them down.
Agree on the frequency of contact. I recommend you do it daily or weekly. Any further apart, it’s likely to fall away as a habit.
You can agree on the logistics of how, what and when to meet or speak or otherwise report to each other.
Decide on when you will review this partnership.
Enjoy having someone there to encourage and support you, and reciprocate that for them.
So now over to you:
Who will you choose as your accountability partner?
What will you report to them specifically?
How will you celebrate with them? I’d love to know.
Until the next issue, take good care of yourself and your loved ones,
Ikuko 💌