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“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person.”

Anne Tyler

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behavior predict questionSo.

Accountability is a surprisingly tough concept. Huh? Accountability is easy to grasp, even likable in concept, but incredibly difficult to implement.

Being accountable can be … well … gut wrenching on occasion.

And while I am tempted to write about this in a business environment … my stomach couldn’t take it today <accountability in today’s business world is stuck in the sludge at the bottom of the business moral barrel>. Instead I will talk about it within an everyday Life perspective. Personal in that while we face the day to day grind we sometimes miss out on the little accountability aspects of life that make us slip down the slope of ‘less than I wanted to be as a person.’

It happens in such small missed accountability increments that you get a little surprised when one day you look in the mirror and see you not only haven’t turned out to the be there person you meant to be, or wanted to be, you have actually turned into the wrong person. What a semi-miserable moment when you ask yourself … ‘are you pleased with what you see?’ … and the answer is … <sigh> … no. I say semi miserable because while pretty much anything you have done up to this point cannot be undone … you can certainly start doing what you want to do to begin the path to a ‘yes’ answer.

Ok. But let’s get back to the here & now and accountability.

Life doesn’t make accountability easy. Life demands constant relentless accountable moments. It is a constant day to day, moment to moment, challenge. You cannot relax for one moment.

Therefore. You have to constantly hold yourself accountable.

I know … I know … it doesn’t sound fair. You are kind of hoping Life would be more about putting yourself on the right path and assuming that if you keep putting one foot in front of the other you will just keep on down that path … and you can start looking at other things.

But you can’t. You have to constantly hold yourself accountable. I don’t have any ‘how to’ advice to offer mostly because I believe most of us know what accountability is and what it takes to be accountable.

I imagine I wrote about this because when I saw the quote I used to open this post it made me think about the constant attention accountability demands. It is the constant aggressive nature of Life itself in seeking the little moments you are not focusing on accountability … and making you pay for them. And the fact that accountability is tricky because it is not just your actions for which you may have to pay the consequences for … but also your inaction.

Yup. You are also accountable for the things you don’t do.

Accountability is really all about assuming responsibility.

Responsibility for not only being in the right place at the right time and doing the right things … but responsibility for when you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and do the wrong thing … as well as responsibility for not being ‘in place’ at all.

Shit. Accountability is tough. It is a harsh judge & jury.

All that said.

Why does this matter?

Why did I even write this post?

 

“… who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person.”

 

Turning into the wrong person is the price to be paid for not constantly holding yourself accountable.

Just ponder that thought.

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Written by Bruce