Accountability – What it means to me

One of the biggest areas in career and personal growth is the area of accountability. 

Accountability, why? 

Because you make your own choices, and you can learn from the choices you make. A lot of self improvement and personal growth has to do with recognising your accountability in areas of your life and the implications of that. A lot of time it’s as simple as making your choices aware.

Accountability: my world is key – I’m not talking about the medical world, of course there’s a stack of reason to be accountable and something that I don’t shirk lightly, but as a writer. Where does you accountability start and end in the narrative of your book?

So let’s take a bit of a plunge into the meaning of accountability.

Accountability means taking responsibility. It’s taking ownership of what you can change, separating the facts from the truth so you can take action instead of worrying about all the problems you have in all your situations and environments.

Accountability means being honest with yourself and others. It means owning up to your mistakes, your choices, your potential. 

Admitting your wrong is the first step in this process. And this is something that I tell my students in the medical world. Mistakes happen and no one will judge you on that. What you’re judged on is how you behave after the fact.

Accountability isn’t just about holding your hand up and admitting you were wrong, but it also means being able to say no.

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is say no. Being able to say no when you need to does not impede your growth in your career or your personal life, it frees you up to continue to grow. It often means getting past the ideas that society wants you to conform to and say no to those too-good-to-be-true ideas, often ‘no’ conjures up conflict and yet, conflict is good. In measured, controlled environments, conflict makes us move forward and conflict can cause the word no, sometimes the hardest thing to say.

Until you become comfortable being accountable for yourself, you’ll struggle through your life based on the choices you own. It is a vital key that moves you beyond your comfort zone, and as Neale Donald Walsch in his seminal spiritual work, Conversations with God – life begins on the edge of your comfort zone.

So what does accountability look like? It’s easy to tell ourselves that “I’m an accountable person,” but does that really mean you’re accountable?

If you’re a parent, you already know that there is an enormous difference between being a good parent and being a good child. Just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, poor parents don’t feel responsible for your children’s well-being, good parents do it because they’re responsible to gain a more important role other than being just a parent. As parents, we take on responsibility even as we help our children lead better lives, and I speak from experience here. The moment we buy into that realisation allows us to grow up in a big way!

With accountability we often feel judged and we learn to recognise all of it. We learn to accept dissatisfaction as a good thing. We learn to see the curiosity, the wildness, and the fun within each of us. As we deal with our own shortcomings, it allows us to deal with the strengths of others in a more symbiotic way. We learn the power of tolerance and sharing instead of standing in judgment.

Of course there is some responsibility in being judgmental, but the concern that we all are judgmental could be the worst idea. Because of our pride, we might think that we could make a difference, but it might be the wrong change for a major reason. Our pride blinds us from the truth of what we can really achieve. We might think we can make a difference.

As a medical professional, I’m comfortable with accountability and as a writer, I am equally not admonished by accountability. Even though I write in the fictional world, I still have to remain true to my core values, moral codes and ethical beliefs. Where would any of us be without them?

A great part of accountability is taking responsibility for your actions, however large or small, and it is a key part of personal accountability. It’s essential for you to do what your responsibilities require so that you can grow. As you work toward what you want in life, the more you give of yourself, the more you become the person you need to be to attract what you want in life. 

If you do what you are accountable for, and give up your excuses and start making the choices and taking the action you have said you are going to take, you can do pretty much anything!