It was 6:15 am and I was walking home from my local Starbucks, getting my 20 minutes of morning sun exposure because Dr. Huberman says it will fix my sleep cycle. As if on cue, my brain began to spin awkwardly like a load of laundry with bunched up sheets.
Don’t forget to turn in your syllabus. [churn, churn] Who do I email that to? Wait. That isn’t due today. [Thump] You haven’t even started researching that presentation you’re giving on Thursday. [churn, churn] You need to really dig into that research. You only have 3 more days. [Thump] You have not scheduled any of your blogs for this week. You’re running out of prerecorded podcasts. The entire sofa is covered in laundry. Don’t forget to schedule tennis lessons. [churn, thump, churn, thump]
As I walked the mean streets of Burbank, I decided. I don’t have time to go to that workout class I had scheduled for today. I have too many things to do. I made a note to cancel my class.
Content with my decision, I kept strolling and began to brainstorm my next course to pitch to Scribd. (Did you know I’m a Scribd coach? They’re absolutely my fave and I’m honored to be a writer for them!) I started thinking of accountability — for your goals, in the workplace, to yourself…
Maybe I should write about accountability.
Hold up…
I stopped in my tracks. Oof. It was plain as day. If I’m going to create a whole eBook on accountability and I can’t keep the promise I made to myself to take a workout class…I shouldn’t be writing an eBook.
So, here’s one of the reasons accountability works. It usually involves other people. I have a 5:30 am zoom chat with my parents every weekday morning to catch up, but also to get my ass out of bed at 5:15 to get work done before my kid wakes up. They are the reason I get out of bed — because I know they’ll be expecting me.
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But, what happens when WE are the only person keeping OURSELVES accountable? What if we answer only to ourselves?
Well, unfortunately, in that case, most of us give up pretty quickly. And that wreaks havoc on our confidence.
I crossed “cancel workout class” off of my to do list. I decided to keep my promise to myself and to keeping myself healthy. I will get the things done that need to be done. But first, I will be accountable to myself.
I know this, but I have to be reminded of it often: Every time we keep a promise to ourselves, we put one more brick onto the foundation of our own self-confidence. We build up our belief in ourselves and the fact that we can do everything we put our minds to. And when we break our promises to ourselves? We do exactly the opposite.
Whether you order McDonald’s on a Tuesday night when you had planned to eat healthily during the week or you decide to press that snooze button when you had promised yourself you’d wake up on time…keeping promises to yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do.
So, I propose today that we all take a radical approach to accountability. Forget everyone else but yourself. We only need to be accountable to our own standards, our own goals, and what we want to do. (Don’t worry, mom and dad — I’ll still be on the zoom). And if that happens to align with the other things we need to get done? Awesome. If it doesn’t, maybe those things weren’t so important after all.
I have an idea…let’s all try this week to be radically accountable. To ourselves.
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