The Benefits of Accountability

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

"Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else."

-Les Brown

Why accountability?

Accountability is the action of taking responsibility for your behaviors, talents, and motivations. Simply put, it is accounting for your own ability. That is, keeping yourself on the hook for what you’ve done, and what you haven’t done.

Accountability is crucial to every aspect of life. When practiced correctly and consistently, accountability ensures that you stay on track to achieving your goals. It also ensures that you live up to your fullest potential, and make the best use of your talents. By accounting for your actions and talents, you hold yourself to the standard necessary to become the best you you can be.

Accountability works alongside your potential and talents, guiding you on your journey to be the best version of yourself. Because every journey is unique, accountability is a very personal effort – it cannot be done by anyone other than yourself. It requires a strong, honest effort at examining your actions, and determining whether your actions and current paths are making the best use of your talent and potential.

Is the path you're on going to take you to the best version of yourself – a self that employs all talents to the best of your ability, and achieves the goals you desire to achieve? Without accountability, you could never know.

5 tips for better accountability

Are you ready to take account of your abilities? Use the following tips to assist you on your journey through accountability:

1. Make clear, concise, and consistent reflections: Take the time to make simple, objective reflections on both your actions and in-actions. Are you making consistent and strong efforts to reach your goals, or are there areas where you seem to “take the easy way”? Write down these reflections, and do so consistently.

2. Avoid negativity: Accountability is not an exercise in self-deprecation. This is not the time to make incorrect assumptions about your self worth or talents. Try to remain neutral and objective with reflections, and keep in mind that your talents, goals, and aspirations are important and worth pursuing.

3. Set clear and manageable expectations: Set goals and expectations that are quantifiable and truly able to be accomplished. Setting standards or goals that are too vague, general, or impossible to achieve can only result in one thing- failure.

4. Be consistent with your efforts: Accountability is not something you practice sometimes or when you feel like it. Taking responsibility and practicing accountability require constant and attention. Try incorporating accountability reflections in every aspect of your life – not just one area – to ensure complete consistency.

5. Abandon double standards: Would you allow someone else to get away with the quality of work you perform? Would you allow someone else to use the talents you’ve been given in the way you’re currently using them? If not, then you shouldn’t allow yourself to.

You’ve been given talents, dreams, and potential that are uniquely yours and deserve to be realized. Decide today to become the best version of yourself. Start by taking responsibility for your talents and aspirations.

Looking for more on the topic of accountability? Watch as Carl himself provides his take on the necessity of accountability.

Ready to take accountability of your talents? Check out our “Quarter Strategic Initiatives Plan Worksheet”, and learn how to plan out your goals and initiatives for each quarter of the year.

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