Why do you feel anxious when you’ve got nothing to do? Why might you get down on yourself when you didn’t get much done in a day? Why do you become frustrated or check out for the day when you don’t have energy? There's a missing ingredient to all these problems…ACCOUNTABILITY. Think, for example, why the weekend is so great but Monday morning is difficult. It’s simple; you have no deadlines, assignments, meetings or commutes to make on Saturday or Sunday. Those days are at your disposal.
Yet during the week, you get your responsibilities done no matter how much they suck, but you might put off that exercise on the weekend so you can “chill”. This is the battle between external and internal accountability.
External accountability is your responsibility to others, like meetings, deadlines, showing up on time, etc. Internal accountability is keeping the promises you make to yourself, and making them a real priority. The important thing is to have both, but internal accountability particularly reflects your credibility and that will not go unnoticed.
Everyone has values and certain rules that they hold close and know not to veer away from in their daily lives. These values are typically maintained through routines and practices that help feed those values each day just a little bit more. Eventually, carrying out self-serving practices as well as your commitments to others will help you earn a fulfilling life.
Now how do you become accountable, stay accountable, or why would you even want to be accountable outside of your regular responsibilities? Recall that we’re hardwired to avoid change. Consider these for yourself:
Cost of Inaction
Everything we do directly correlates to a future outcome. For example, if a leader doesn’t go out and make deals or connect with others, how will their business do? Everything is a trade-off. This is an important concept to consider when working towards anything. Of course, there are always things you want outside your goals that make you happy, but what’s their real price?
Will you have to do extra work tomorrow? Will you be mentally prepared to handle your tasks? You must take inventory of what you need to operate effectively. If there’s something you have to give up to make that happen, evaluate your priorities. At the end of the day, you want to equip yourself today to handle tomorrow and you might find that tomorrow keeps getting easier.
Know Your Role
What titles do you hold? A friend? Sister? Brother? Dad? Mom? Director? Manager? Understanding what kind of impact you bring to anything you’re involved in, whether work, relationships, or family, will give you a sense of your need to provide. To provide value in any area of your life, you need to take care of yourself first.
This is where internal accountability meets external. To be effective in the roles or titles you hold, you need to know how much rides on your presence and efforts. You can then carry that with you as you go through your daily practices.
Daily Practice
Getting better at something is not an overnight or multi-step process. To get better, we have to give up instant gratification. Instead, we want to challenge ourselves every day in ways that are going to build us up long-term.
For example, dedicating an hour a day to reading, waking up at the same time for breakfast each day, or having a no phone period. These practices can be anything you want them to be as long as you know they will serve you. Once you establish what they are, structure them and make them a routine.
Conclusion
To be the best you can be, you have to give yourself opportunities to seek advancement, and that doesn’t just mean job-wise. It’s advancing the use of your time. If you dedicated an hour here, thirty minutes there every day to self-serving practices, you’d be surprised what could come.
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