This word \u2013 accountability \u2013 has troubled me sometimes.\u00a0 Too often someone wants to impose his or her version of it on someone else.\u00a0 Even the definitions I\u2019ve found fail to communicate a strongly positive connotation.<\/p>\n
Although they\u2019re not necessarily negative either.\u00a0 There\u2019s a weight to being accountable, you are agreeing to be responsible.<\/p>\n
In my coaching classes, we talk about accountability a lot.\u00a0 Yet, it\u2019s in the context of helping our clients define what accountability looks like for them.\u00a0 And then, what they want from us around their definition of accountability.\u00a0 They create the entire experience \u2013 according to what works for them.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I feel a bit cynical, that the world is becoming filled with people who tend to blame others.\u00a0 \u201cIf only, he or she didn\u2019t\u2026 then I wouldn\u2019t\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Other times I think we\u2019re reluctant to reveal the extent of the responsibility we each feel for things \u2013 to be that vulnerable.<\/p>\n
Making changes is hard.\u00a0 Plain and simple.\u00a0 There are philosophies abounding about how to make them happen.\u00a0 One of the most successful tactics for realizing changes is to tell people about your intentions.<\/strong>\u00a0 This makes us most likely to follow through \u2013 there\u2019s an accountability built in.\u00a0 We\u2019re making ourselves accountable by telling other people about our goals.<\/p>\n This is exactly like in our coaching practice (and many organizing clients) \u2013 our clients share their intentions and we follow up and see how they are coming.\u00a0 Of course, we also spend time talking about the details making it specific.<\/p>\n Yet, what happens when someone is critical of our not succeeding in making those changes?\u00a0 It undermines our efforts.\u00a0 We\u2019re less likely to broadcast our goals again.<\/p>\n We need to make sure we find supportive people to share our goals with \u2013 people who will encourage us at the same time that they won\u2019t let us off the hook easily.\u00a0 Hence, hold us accountable.\u00a0 You need to define what that looks like for you \u2013 how do you want to be held accountable?\u00a0 Ideally, even if you don\u2019t manage to meet your expectations, the result is not criticism, but curiosity, \u201cwhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n Accountability can certainly develop negative connotations depending on whom you\u2019re sharing things with.\u00a0 In essence, accountability is a positive concept.\u00a0 We all need it to some degree, just in our distinct, personal way.\u00a0 When I think about accountability in this way, whether for myself or for those I work with, I appreciate the value it has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Too often \u201caccountability\u201d is used in a negative way yet it\u2019s a powerful tool when used in constructive ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10,8,18,9,7,22,15,4],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personaldevelopment","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-motivation","tag-procrastination","tag-productivity","tag-resources","tag-routines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-jl","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}