The Accountability Mindset

Everyone wants to live a happy life, but often we don’t realize our own power to create the life we want. If you’re not where you want to be in your life, take a moment to ask yourself: Who or what am I holding accountable for where I find myself in my life? It’s very likely that you find yourself blaming other people and circumstances for your current situation. In order to have the kind of life we would love, we need to change our mindset towards accountability. When we choose to become more accountable for our actions and responsibilities, we reclaim our power over what happens in our lives.

How do you cultivate an accountability mindset?

The first step to cultivating an accountability mindset is to take responsibility for your actions. When you fail to keep a promise, it’s important to acknowledge that you are the cause of that failure—not the environment, not the circumstances, but yourself.

The second step is being willing to admit when you have failed to keep a promise. Many people don’t like being seen as “failures,” so they will go out of their way to avoid admitting mistakes or shortcomings in their work or personal life. This leads them down a dangerous path where they start trying harder and harder at something because they think this will fix it—but instead ends up making problems worse by giving them more excuses not to do anything about them!

Asking for help from others (like friends and family) is another important way we can develop stronger accountability mindsets; if we don’t ask for help when needed then nobody else has any idea what struggles we might be going through behind closed doors!

Take responsibility for your actions or your lack of action.

You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it. You can’t change other people’s behavior, but you can change your own. You cannot control everything in life and sometimes things happen beyond our control (illness, natural disasters), but we have more control than we realize when it comes to how we respond to these situations and how they affect us emotionally and mentally.

We only have full control over ourselves—our thoughts and emotions as well as our behaviors (actions). This includes the way we choose to respond to events both internal (i.e., feeling bad because someone said something hurtful) or external (i.e., getting upset because someone cut us off while driving).

You have the ability to make changes in yourself, but you cannot necessarily change others.

If you find yourself wanting to change someone else, ask yourself if there’s something they’re doing that makes them act in a certain way? If so, how can you help them avoid making that mistake again? For example, if your co-worker forgot an assignment at home and was late because of it—perhaps next time they could leave earlier or use their own computer instead of yours. Or maybe they don’t seem interested in learning new things; perhaps allocating more time for training would be beneficial. The point is that sometimes changing someone else may require changing yourself as well (e.g., by learning about who they are and what makes them tick).

Avoid blaming others

The more you blame others for the situation in which you find yourself, the more difficult it will be to make positive changes. Blaming others also means that you are avoiding responsibility for your own actions. If, for example, a person doesn’t like their job but blames others and isn’t willing to change anything about it or themselves, then they are not taking any action at all. Instead of blaming others, ask yourself: How can I improve myself so that my life is better?

Your life will become easier when you accept responsibility for your part in creating the situation you find yourself in.

“I had no choice.”

You hear that a lot, don’t you? But what does it really mean? When someone says “I had no choice,” they’re saying that their situation was out of their control and there was nothing they could have done about it anyway. It’s an easy excuse for people who feel powerless in the face of adversity: “If only I’d had more money…” or “I’m just not lucky.” Well, if you’re reading this blog post, then it’s safe to say that you aren’t powerless at all; in fact, by taking responsibility for your actions and recognizing that luck is something we create ourselves through action, you can actually start creating opportunities where there were none before.

Accept responsibility for whatever situation brought you here today—whether it be financial woes or health issues caused by poor eating habits or a lack of exercise. This involves taking action based on our new understanding of ourselves as creators rather than victims; this means making conscious choices rather than blaming others or circumstances beyond our control when things don’t go our way

Take accountability and claim back your power.

When you take responsibility for your part in creating the situation, you claim back your power that is being given away to others through blaming them for your feelings and circumstances. Instead of feeling powerless, you are taking back control. Taking responsibility means owning up to the fact that whatever is happening in your life right now has come about because of something you have done or not done.

It’s easy to blame others for our problems. We can spend years blaming our parents for everything that went wrong with us when we were growing up; our partners for not understanding us; our bosses for making us feel inadequate at work; society as a whole because it doesn’t allow us enough time off work so we can go on holiday; or even technology companies because they make addictive devices which distract us from what really matters in life (and why hasn’t someone invented an app yet that reminds me when I’m doing this?!).

Not following through adds stress to your relationships & life.

Taking accountability is more than just saying “yes.” It’s about making a commitment and taking action. When you agree to do something and then find yourself procrastinating and failing to follow through, it adds stress and strain on your relationships and yourself.

When you aren’t accountable, people don’t know what they can count on from you. You might be able to get away with not completing an assignment or project at work because no one will really notice if it doesn’t get done—but what happens when things go wrong? If a client calls in the middle of an important meeting because she needs help with something that was supposed to be finished last week but hasn’t been touched yet? Regardless of how much effort was put into creating that presentation template for her months ago (in addition to everything else), if the person who said yes isn’t responsible enough or trustworthy enough to live up under pressure like this situation provides—then who knows what could happen next time!

Be willing to admit when you have failed to keep a promise. What would be different if we followed through?

As you work to keep your promise, you may find that it is difficult. It can feel like a giant effort to make a change in yourself. You might even fail at first!

But what if you were willing to admit when you failed? What if, instead of trying harder and harder, you said: “I didn’t follow through”? How would that feel?

What would be different if we followed through on our promises instead of trying harder and harder until we finally got it right or gave up in frustration (only to start again later). The Four Agreements has a great chapter on staying true to your word.

Taking responsibility is not always easy, but we can all work on accepting the things in life that aren’t up to us and working towards what is in our control.

Accountability is an important part of your growth and mindset journey. When you are accountable for your actions, you take ownership of your results and take charge of growing yourself.

___

OVERWHELM TO OVERFLOW

Discover 3 Simple Things All Photographers MUST DO To Create a Profitable and Sustainable Business. Learn more!