Learning to be Accountable

Hey Guys,

Something that I made public in my goals for 2011 and have talked about it a few other times, is this idea of staying accountable. There are a few different levels of stay accountable, to oneself, to the people around him and to the actions he does. I believe that accountability can be broken down into those three categories and probably into a thousand others but in my life those are the three main groups. I am wishing that learning to be accountable was as easy as saying it. Unfortunately something in my life I am noticing and something I have noticed with the people around to is it is hard to keep people to something, even more keeping yourself focus on one thing. The thing that I find the hardest is to find a way to feel like you let yourself down in a healthy way when you do not stay accountable. If anyone has been reading for a long long time will know I suffered from depression and one of the reasons I did was because I blamed myself for all the mistakes going on and kept them inside. Well now I am trying to learn how to keep yourself accountable to getting the job done, getting the paper done or just getting your life in order. There is a difference between feeling like a failure and feeling like you let yourself down. For example if I one day start feeling down and stop telling people what is going on I feel like I let myself down, where as before I would have felt like a failure. Let me try to get my thoughts out here...

First is staying accountable for your actions. This is probably the easiest thing to do simply because it is easy to monitor. Usually this one at least in my life requires someone to point out what is going on and if changes are actually happens. We always see our life through our own eyes. Even I do with all my recent self-reflection still see my life through my own eyes. I think that is the biggest prohibitor from keeping us from being accountable for our actions is the fact that we see our actions through our own eyes. How should you stay accountable for your actions? I do not know. For me it has been asking and getting people to watch your actions and help you see what is going on. This does not mean someone everyday judging you on your actions but watching and seeing where trends are forming and how things can get better. 

I am going to tie this into the second group which is staying accountable to the people around you. This is because they are very similar which is you need to find people you trust want to see you get better from what you are facing. It is difficult to be accountable to other people because it requires you to be vulnerable to people and to open up when you are facing things. I recently wrote on justifying actions and such. This will be a big thing you face while trying to be accountable to people is justifying anyway that your actions are fine. That you do not need to be accountable to people. Unfortunately (well maybe it is just me) when there is no one to keep you accountable you start to convince yourself that what you are doing is not that bad or even alright. Whether it be stealing, excessively drinking, drugs or anything you will slowly convince yourself they are fine.

Last is being a accountable to yourself. This is something I am learning each day and still am far away from 'mastering' which is how do you stay accountable to yourself? When getting over your struggle the technique right now which seems to be working is an extrinsic reason to stay accountable i.e. giving up something. When you are facing something like an addiction (using as an example do not worry) it is hard to give it up and usually requires more then just yourself saying I want to stop it. There needs to be a reason to stop. I am trying to figure out how you eventually change it so that your intrinsic motivation and decision making changes. I will tell you when I get there.

That is just what I am trying to figure out right now is how do you learn to stay accountable? It is something much easier said then done. I guess I am still learning and hopefully you guys are too!

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka