The Benefits of Accountability - Peta Cornish
January. January can be such a difficult time for many. A time of reflection, a time full of expectations and perhaps pressures – either that we put on ourselves or we feel placed upon us by how a “New Year“ holds such potential for change, new habit building, success, becoming a “new person”.
Yet January is dark, cold, often grey (especially if you live in England!), and it’s often easy to lose inspiration quickly and fall straight back into the habits we so resolutely decided to break on January 1st.
I am not one for making resolutions, but I do set intentions each year and indeed each week. These intentions are for how I want to show up; how I want to feel, how I want to be and what I’d like things to look like in all areas of my life.
This year I have felt particularly called to upscale and upskill in various ways. To elevate my personal tone, energy or ‘vibe’. This year, I am working with a number of different coaches to help me move towards that goal. I have worked with coaches before (and indeed therapists, groups, friends etc), but I am finding renewed clarity, motivation and consistency of action this month, particularly in how being accountable to someone else is so powerful. It deepens one’s commitment. It makes the unreachable feels much more possible. It allows me to show up better for myself in the long-term.
Accountability - the fact of being responsible for what you do and able to give a satisfactory reason for it - is serving me well.
Some benefits from a recent study show that accountability:
1. Accelerates your performance
2. Helps you measure your success and progress
3. Keeps you engaged
4. Keeps you responsible
5. Validates your thoughts and ideas
Each fortnight, I report back not only to myself but to the coaches I am checking in with as well. I have to answer to my own brain but also to someone else’s. There is something about that accountability which spurs action. And though there is some discomfort in being totally honest about my worries, anxieties, insecurities and even my wishes and dreams, there is also a relief in the mutual holding of those thoughts. I don’t have to bear the burden of them all. And because they are shared, these things somehow feel more achievable. The steps I take towards them come more easily, or if not easily, at least I feel an increased drive to make them. If only so I can tick them off my to do list and report back to my coach with a thumbs up - “Yes I’ve done this!”
Accountability (for a good student like me anyway) is so useful. So powerful. So transformative. The Forbes Review lists the benefits of accountability as “significant”, citing “growth, learning, opportunity, better health, stronger relationships, improved results, increased self-esteem and confidence” as some of the most powerful. Ultimately, as Brian Moran notes, “accountability optimises the control people have over their own results and the life they lead” for themselves.”