Stop Failing to Respect your own Goals: Mastering Self-accountability
If the number of times I didn’t follow through with commitments I’ve made to myself was synonymous to the number of times I didn’t follow through with commitments made to my job, I would be fired in a heartbeat.
From elementary school through college, our instructors and coaches hold us responsible. We frequently take it for granted, heck, we blatantly expect it. This is school. This is how it functions. We have often voiced our complaints about the teachers who seem to think their class is your “only” class and the deadlines that seem insurmountable. There are days, months, years, when we feel worn out from trying to keep up.
When graduation day comes we’re thrilled, and we are proud of ourselves, as we should be. We have so many teachers, coaches, family members, that supported us along this journey. They’ve helped in countless ways.
Yay, diploma in hand as we step of the stage. Congratulations! Now is time for “Adulting”. What is it specifically about “adulting” that makes it daunting? A significant aspect is how much self-accountability is required. It’s time for us to start holding ourselves accountable because our professors and coaches are now off assisting in the success of others. This is largely what adulting encompasses — the feat of mastering self-accountability.
Self-accountability is characterized as an obligation or readiness to accept responsibility or to answer for one’s actions. Strong self-accountability means you are fulfilling commitments to yourself. For instance, if you would like to start a blog, you’ll give yourself a deadline for when you’ll publish it. High self-accountability is demonstrated by meeting that deadline. It goes without saying that keeping the commitments we make to ourselves is challenging, it can be demanding and falling short is disheartening. If the number of times I didn’t follow through with commitments I’ve made to myself was synonymous to the number of times I didn’t follow through with commitments made to my job, I would be fired in a heartbeat.
Goodness, I’ve tried numerous ways to improve my self-accountability. The myriad of experiments have helped immensely. However, the level at which another can hold you accountable, seems impossible to obtain. Right? At least that’s how I’ve felt for the vast majority of my 24 years. And it wasn’t until recently that I became very much aware of this fixed mindset, and it’s ability to stunt my growth.
Before I delve into the five tricks to strengthen self-accountability. I ask that you pause. Pause and reflect on this question I’m about to ask you.
I know I sound like an English teacher pausing the class during a reading.
“Is the level of which I can hold myself accountable equal to that of which another can?” For instance, personal trainers are in high demand because they not only provide guidance they also provide an accountability partner.
Accountability that we, ourselves, cannot seem to achieve. If the answer is no, which it has been for me for so long, then take a few minutes to reflect on that belief. Do you understand it’s limitations?
1. Believe your self-accountability is great!
Step one of strengthening our self-accountability is mindset. Provide daily affirmation that when it comes to holding yourself accountable, you’re a natural. A study on “The psychology of change: self-affirmation and social psychological intervention” showed affirmations can help people reduce stress, and be more receptive to changing their behavior. As well as “…improve education, health, and relationship outcomes, with benefits that sometimes persist for months and years” (Cohen and Sherman, 2014).
This image from the studies shows the reinforcing nature of self-acts and the social system. The image depicts that self-affirmation leads to adaptive outcomes, such as improved performance.
For 90 days (yes this is where simplicity and dedication come into play), write the affirmation, “I am unbelievably good at holding myself accountable. I follow through with commitments I make to myself and in that I build trust and confidence that I will achieve my goals and create the life I envision for myself.” Of course feel free to create a variation which works best for you. Make it your own. The more often you write this affirmation, the more powerful your self-accountability becomes. Yes it’s as simple as writing this each day for 90 days, and truly believing its your truth. Make sure you keep track.
Self-affirmations can help reduce the effect of negative emotions which may otherwise inhibit oneself. Additionally, MRI results from studies have suggested that particular brain pathways are strengthened when people practice self-affirmation (Cascio et al., 2016). The research behind this practice is extensive, and I suggest looking into it further in order to find the best techniques and affirmations to aide you in your pursuit of success.
2. Have the mindset that you are you own employee.
We will continue to fall short of our objectives unless we learn to respect the promises we make to ourselves. When your boss ask you to do something, you’re not going to say, “Yeah I’ll do it next week.” and then the next week comes and you say, “I’ll do it tomorrow” and so on. But we do this so easily when it comes to commitments we’ve made to ourselves to achieve our own goals. Oftentimes, it’s easier to follow through on the goals of others, like your company’s goals, then it is to follow through on the goals you define for yourself. For me I set out numerous goals, and the steps I need to take each day, but oftentimes I shirk commitments I’ve made to myself. Consequently, the timeline for my goal increases.
But how can we start tackling this? How can we treat ourselves like we’re just our own employee trying to hold on to our job.
To do this we have to first analyze why you do follow through with commitments at our jobs. The first thing that may come to mind is a paycheck. Unfortunately the paycheck is often invisible when we start out on our own side hustle, or whatever it may be. Or the metaphorical paycheck we receive by working on our mental and physical health seems so far out of reach. The potential gains are out of sight. Being an employee it’s clear, I get the paycheck once bi-weekly. There is a concrete time for when I’ll be compensated for the work. Our need for an immediate return can obstruct our ability to achieve our personal goals. We will continue to fall into this trap until we can learn how to sacrifice short-term gains for long-term gains. Having the mindset that you are your own employee can help minimize this by bringing the skill from your job to your life goals. If you’re a good employee you know you’re already are good at following through on your commitments, now you just need to bring this strength into your personal goals.
I urge you to think more on this question — what leads us to respect the requests made from our boss more than those we define for ourselves?
4. Define your time
Days rush by, and before you know it, it’s already a month until the new year, and that’s like jumping in an ice bath in the morning to wake up. It’s shocking but effective, and we’ll either spring into action or fall back onto our bed.
This all too familiar experience of losing site of our yearly goals, can be tackled by better time management. Each day setting aside snippets of time for tasks can make the larger goal more manageable. Hopefully condensing them to something so small that you don’t even question doing it. For instance 45 mins of exercise 5x a week, tell yourself you just need to get out for a 10 min run, and sure enough you’ll realize you can do more. Showing up is half the battle. We can’t always focus on the bigger picture, if we do, if we think about that full 45 minutes, it can block any action. Time management is a hard skill to build, but just remember, every day a little bit of improvement goes a long ways.
5. Euphemisms
Our negative associations with tasks can be a significant hindrance to action. For instance, when we tell ourselves to go work on our website, blog, whatever else it may be, we see it as just that, “work”. Euphemisms can help us shift to a positive perspective, because they focus on what we’re gaining. For example, instead of “side hustle” say “passion project”, or “balance” rather than “budget”. The point is to reframe tasks that we often find ourselves procrastinating or ignore entirely.
I’d love to hear ways you’ve improved your self-accountability over the years, so if you feel like doing so, please leave a comment. I’d love to increase the list of ways to strengthening such a fundamental skill.
Citations
Cohen G.L., Sherman D.K. (2014). The psychology of change: self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333–71. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
