The Truth About Accountability

Hello everyone!

With the summer and third quarter of the year well underway, I’ve been reflecting on what accountability truly means.

Living in Upstate NY, where the warm months and blue skies are few and far between, I’m often personally faced with the pull to spend as much time outside enjoying the beautiful days while they are here. I will hear over and over again that my clients in the Northeast feel the same way, where they tend to unplug or struggle with focus, discipline or fall off their pacing for their goals during this portion of the year. Even my friends and clients in sunny places like California, Texas or Florida feel drawn to use the nice weather wisely and even feel guilty when they sit behind their desk all day working when the sun is shining.

I recently had that great honor of hosting the Next Level Mastermind Retreat in Canandaigua where the experienced female entrepreneurs in the group came together to celebrate, support, care for and connect with one another on their life and business, through healing the past, getting more present and preparing for the future evolution of their business. Even in making the decision to join for the weekend, some of the women had some initial internal resistance to overcome about spending a weekend in their summer at a retreat designed for their business. Check out how impactful their choice ended up being thanks to overcoming the resistance here: 

Read more about Overcoming Resistance Here

Some coaching clients will inevitably come to our conversations asking for accountability to stay on track and focused during the summer months, and that’s when we have to dive in and have a conversation about the truth behind accountability that must be understood.

First and foremost, accountability is an inside job. If you are asking someone else to be the person to hold that accountability for you, and don’t go inward to really learn more about what’s driving your internal motivation, commitment and urgency forward, then you will continue to fall short of what you are looking to accomplish through accountability. 

The most surface level of accountability is about “who is going to do what by when and how,” which are all critical factors to explore when we are sorting through what we are looking to accomplish. Getting those linear details clear, communicated, documented and tracked will certainly help in the process of keeping focused and attending to your goals. When you are working in groups, with your employees or mentees and they ask you for accountability, you do want to slow down and get the answers to each of these questions so that there is clarity about what they are looking to accomplish.

However, if you don’t also dig deeper to understand the why behind your goals, your intrinsic motivation and how you are going to remain 100% personally responsible to accomplishing those goals, you will fall short. True accountability is the clarity behind why you personally want to and are willing to accomplish something that holds deep meaning to you.

This requires internal work, where you are diving into some personal reflection questions about the deeper why behind your goals. Sometimes, that requires you to understand more deeply that when you are saying “yes” to something, you are by default saying “no” to other options. Therefore, if you say “yes” to skipping your business building, recruiting or prospecting activities that were planned for the sake of a day by the pool, you are saying “no” to the potential of new people to serve in your business at that moment. One choice directly impacts the other.  

Please don’t read this newsletter and interpret my reflection on summer to mean that you should focus, push or force no matter the weather, no matter the circumstance and that you shouldn’t enjoy yourself. What we are talking about here is to make a decision, and commit to that choice based on what matters most to you.

If being totally present to your family during the summer months is your business plan and decision? That’s incredible! Live that plan with gusto.

However, if you’ve proactively done the internal work to decide that the summer is your prime producing set of months for the year or you choose not to take your foot off the gas on a sunny day - then do so with full commitment, clarity and confidence.

Either way, you’ve decided what and why the choice matters to you deeply and you are living in agreement with your choice day after day, moment after moment. 

I strongly encourage my clients to factor in heavy amounts of rest, joy, fun, adventure, peace, quiet and restoration as a non-negotiable part of their business plan. I happen to believe that it’s the MOST important part of the puzzle, because we cannot draw from an empty cup. It’s when we are ignoring the integration of the promise and commitment we have for ourselves and our business that the wheels fall off the track. Turns out, it’s both - rest and commit; restore and move forward; relax, play, enjoy and get things done!

Nobody needs to hold you accountable when you are living in the environment of 100% personal responsibility.

This is the energy that while it may not be your fault that something is going on in your life or business, you are willing to accept ownership and responsibility for shifting the only thing you can actually control: your response to that circumstance you find yourself in now.  

To listen into this month’s podcast to hear more in personal responsibility, sign up for the monthly newsletter here:

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To learn more about how to foster accountability in leadership, check out this article where I was featured along with some other experts in the field thanks to Featured and Businesscoaches.io:

Fostering Accountability in your Leaders

Enjoy the rest of your summer and see you next month!  

Raeanne