Pretty much my entire life I’ve either sought or had natural accountability partners in my life. Being the “younger” of several older sisters and brothers I immediately knew “who was the boss” hahaha and learned to take rank orders quickly. Through college, my professional career and #adulting I’ve been fortunate to have incredible mentors, sister friends, church leaders, and a village pour into my life freely. They helped me form a high degree of external accountability. Building my inner accountability muscle was more intentional and in my opinion more valuable especially this year in my health and wellness journey. By the end of this post, I hope to associate the question “Who are you accountable to” beginning with Myself.
Back in January, my intention of starting this blog was to become accountable to the process of improving my well being. I knew simply tackling wellness in my life would not be enough motivation, but if I wrote about the process and became accountable to my own journey a measure of individual responsibility would fuel the journey burning from the inside.
The definition most applicable to this post is “the quality or state of being accountable especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” If your actions are constantly justified by provocation or obligation, then how can you be governed by accountability? Essentially you can’t be responsible, without being accountable. Phew that’s deep… as most of us all seek to be generally responsible humans. Life must be in balance, responsibility and accountability must weigh equally or an imbalance can cause even more troubles.
Here are 4 methods I helpd myself responsible to improve being more accountable to my well-being.
- Time Management and using the word “no“.
- This year I treated my personal work out classes as if they were as important as meetings. I made purposeful time for them, placed them on my calendar routinely even spent time planning my workouts every sunday evening. They became non negotiables to myself.
- What do you commit to yourself?
- Do you commit to a set number of sleep hours to be well rested?
- Perhaps you purposely make time for that spin class you love?
- Is it long term striving to reach a promotional goal/title you’ve pined for some time.
- What do you commit to yourself?
- Whatever it is, how are you holding yourself accountable to that intention?
- This year I treated my personal work out classes as if they were as important as meetings. I made purposeful time for them, placed them on my calendar routinely even spent time planning my workouts every sunday evening. They became non negotiables to myself.
- I recently asked for help in holding myself accountable from a trusted friend.
- I I signed up for the Queen Been 4-mile race. Within minutes of registering I texted a dear friend. “I’m so close to my weight loss goal, I know this race will motivate me to keep going. Will you walk it with me in support and not let me drop out”. She said YES! and it’s been incredibly helpful to me to have my friends training, laughing and texting together about the race keeping me motivated to keep going.
- It’s ok to ask for help to keep yourself on track.
- Ask someone you trust, and will help in a way that’s helpful to you
- I I signed up for the Queen Been 4-mile race. Within minutes of registering I texted a dear friend. “I’m so close to my weight loss goal, I know this race will motivate me to keep going. Will you walk it with me in support and not let me drop out”. She said YES! and it’s been incredibly helpful to me to have my friends training, laughing and texting together about the race keeping me motivated to keep going.
- I wrote a blog post about improving internal validation through purpose.
- This post will help you pull from internal validation to improving your internal commitments.
- Invest in yourself
- As I committed to my wellness I also signed up to improve my development in this space through health coaching. I invested both time and money to this cause and it was well worth it.
Self-management, accountability, and responsibility are all linked. I encourage you to consider building those muscles internally as well as leaning on your natural supports externally. Life in balance….
In peace,
J