The Power of Personal Accountability

Everyone procrastinates. But when this becomes your default mode, something has to change.

Everyone has an “off” day now and then. And that’s okay. It’s natural to make excuses to get out of doing things you don’t want to do. But when this becomes your default mode, something has to change. If you want to be happy, successful, and content in your life, you can’t keep putting off your responsibilities. I mean, someone has to do it, and if that person isn’t you then who is it? There is no-one else on this planet who is responsible for what you should be doing other than you. And there is no-one else at fault when you don’t get those things done, other than you.

When you start taking full ownership of your actions, your goals, and the direction you’re taking in life, your self-confidence will grow and you will start to feel a sense of control and empowerment that will help you to evolve into the person you’ve always been capable of becoming. And all it takes is a little tough love, commitment, and discipline.

Making a change is hard. If you’ve ever started a new exercise regime or adopted a new discipline, you know how difficult it is to get into the habit of starting something and sticking to it. And changing the way you look at yourself and what you expect of yourself is just as difficult. But it is very possible to get to a place in your life where you completely commit yourself to achieve your goals and embrace failure as something to learn from rather than something to run from. And in this post, we’re going to look at how you can get there.

So, Where Do You Start?

Think about what you do when something goes wrong in your life, whether it’s at work or at home. What’s your first instinct? Is it to blame someone else? Or is it to do some self-reflection and try to figure out what you can do differently next time to avoid that situation from happening again? If you’re stuck in what I call “the blame game”, then your natural response to any problem will be to find fault externally and think “okay, who messed up here?”, rather than looking for the answers internally and taking responsibility for the issue by immediately working to rectify it, rather than blaming others for whatever has gone wrong. So instead of reacting with “who dropped the ball on this one?” you start working on how you can fix the problem.

Holding yourself personally accountable means thinking in a completely different way. Instead of asking “why” something happened or “who” is to blame (which is one of the worst things to do by the way, because you’re constantly blaming someone else instead of taking it on yourself), you should be asking “what happened” and “how can I do better?”. For example, if you’re working on a project in the office and your boss comes to you and says the report you sent him was incorrect, your gut reaction may be to think “well that’s because they told me to do it that way”. But that’s your frustration talking. The most healthy and productive thing for you to ask yourself would be “what questions should I ask to get better information next time in order to do this task properly?” and “how can I improve”? This way of thinking requires a lot of emotional strength but it is something that will 100% change the way you work and the relationship you have with your colleagues and management.

Traits of Personal Accountability

If you’re wondering just how personally accountable you are already, there are a few key traits of someone who generally takes ownership of their actions. People who fall into this category are very committed to achieving results. They will do whatever it takes to complete the challenge at hand, including anything that’s outside of their usual scope of responsibilities. This applies both at work and at home. It could mean taking on some extra work in the office to get a project completed on time, or it could mean taking on a few extra chores at home to help out when your partner is working overtime. In both cases, this commitment to doing what you say you’ll do doesn’t just benefit you, it benefits everyone around you.

Being personally accountable also means being very resilient, You have to be in it for the long haul regardless of the task at hand. Feel like giving up? Don’t. Plan isn’t working? Make a new one. Can’t think of a plan? Collaborate with friends or colleagues to make one — but don’t fob the work off onto someone else entirely. There’s a difference between working with someone and delegating a task to them completely, and it’s a big one.

On that note, taking ownership of your actions and the results of those actions is especially important. You should absolutely take pride in your work when it goes well, but it’s also important to acknowledge failures and own up to any mistakes or errors so that you can change, learn from them, and improve going forward. What won’t work, is lauding over the big wins and blaming others for things that don’t go your way. To sum it up in 3 words: Don’t do that.

How You Will Benefit From Personal Accountability

If all of this seems like a lot of hard work, you’re right. But the good news is it’s worth it. When you start “showing up” for yourself and others by taking accountability for your own actions, you’ll develop much healthier relationships with your family, friends, and colleagues. In fact, a study back in 2005 found that children who embraced personal responsibility had more positive social interactions as a result. If a kid can manage it, you can too.

In the workplace, accountability is more important than ever. This is what really builds and sustains trust amongst teammates because they feel like they can depend on each other. When you hold yourself personally accountable, it means that you stop taking a backseat in the team you’re working in. If you see a problem, you speak up and you look for a way to fix it. You don’t simply ignore it and hope it goes away (and by “goes away” I mean “hope that someone else will do it”!).

This saves companies massive amounts of time and money that are caused by situations that escalate when problems go on for longer than they should because no-one wants to take ownership of them. Even leaders who are seen to be more accountable will be much more respected because this helps them to gain the trust of their employees. And if you want to be a leader, being personally accountable is one of the best ways to put yourself on the path to promotion. Accountability = dependability, and dependability = leadership qualities.

Ready to Start Holding Yourself Accountable? Start Here

If you think you’re not holding yourself accountable in your life, that’s step one. Why? Because you’re thinking about it. You’re being self-aware. You’re analyzing your performance. And by doing that, you’re halfway there. So go you! To help you get the rest of the way, here are a few things you can do to really take ownership of your actions:

Swap Pride for Apologies

If you’ve done something wrong, you need to ‘fess up. Look at what you’ve done wrong and explain how you’re going to make amends. People will respect you more for admitting you’ve made a mistake than ignoring it and hoping it goes away. This takes the weight of your mistake off everyone else’s shoulders, and most of the time they’ll be happy to help you out once you’ve taken ownership of it.

Embrace Time Management

Procrastination is common, but it shouldn’t be so common that it creeps into your life daily. This is something that’s often used as a tactic to keep delaying something you don’t want to deal with until, eventually, someone else deals with it instead. Which is the antithesis of taking personal responsibility! If you constantly keep leaving problems for other people to deal with, you’ll become a burden on the people in your life. And in a workplace environment, this can really affect your career and reputation.

In order to overcome procrastination, you just need to think about why exactly you end up doing it. Is it that you’re not particularly interested in the task/s? Are you lacking confidence in your ability to complete the task? Do you need more information in order to complete it? Knowledge is power and once you have the answers to these questions you’ll be far less likely to sit thinking about doing something rather than actually doing it.

One of the best ways to avoid procrastination is to set up a monthly/weekly/daily to-do list that outlines everything you have to do and also includes all of the information you need in order to complete that task. Using a task management app like Buckets will help you to manage these tasks by adding any important documents to each to-do list item, identifying key priority tasks with Labels, adding Checklists to break down the step-by-step actions required to complete a task, inviting colleagues/friends to collaborate where necessary, and setting a timeline for completion.

You Don’t Know Everything, and That’s Okay

We’ve all been in a situation, especially in the workplace, where someone asks you something you think you “should” know and you just don’t have a clue. In this case, it’s easy to go into panic mode and come up with some explanation/answer that makes just enough sense to get you off the hook, but ultimately is so vague that it doesn’t really help anyone in the long run. If you don’t know something, the best thing to do is admit it. No-one expects you to know everything and you’d be surprised at how absolutely fine most people will be if you simply say “I’m not sure about that but I can find out for you”.

Stop Taking On Too Much

This is something that applies both at work and at home and I’m not sure there’s a single person on the planet who isn’t guilty of taking on too much at a time. Generally, it happens because you don’t want to let someone down, or you don’t want to feel like you’re not capable. But the irony of that is that if you overcommit to a bunch of tasks then eventually you will let someone down, and you will not be capable of fulfilling them to the maximum of your ability.

It’s important to think carefully before you take on a new task; think about what you have coming up and how much extra stress it will cause — and if that extra stress is worth it (sometimes it is, in the short term, so this is really a personal decision). If you’re unsure whether you can complete the task, just be honest and explain why. This is a massive sign of professional and emotional maturity and it will stand well to you in your career as well as helping to manage your personal relationships much better.

Set Actionable Goals

How many times have you written a new year resolution list that you haven’t stuck to? I bet it’s happened more than a few times! This is usually due to a lack of clarity around how you’re going to actually complete the items in your list. For example, “climb Mount Everest ‘’ seems a pretty daunting task if you’ve no idea where to start training and you don’t know if you can get time off to go! Every goal you set should include a checklist of concrete actions. In Buckets, you can even apply deadlines to specific actions within a goal alongside setting a due date to the goal itself.

Holding Yourself Personally Accountable Benefits Everyone Around You

The thing about personal accountability is that it’s not just personal; it’s not just about you. Personal accountability benefits everyone around you too! It helps to build strong teams where employees truly bond and feel empowered in themselves and their teammates. It builds strong relationships where friends and spouses feel secure and free from anxiety. And it builds a life where you are in control of who you are, where you’re going, and how you’re going to get there.

A person who is personally accountable doesn’t blame other people or make excuses for their own mistakes. They’re clear about what they expect of themselves and of other people, they admit when they’re wrong and they can equally enjoy the satisfaction they get when things go right — because they’ve earned it. It takes courage to think twice before delegating blame, but if you can work on your self-awareness to develop personal resilience, your mistakes and failures in life will become extremely valuable lessons to learn from.

You only have one life. Make sure you’re the one living it.

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