A common and popular theme in many areas these days, new age, leadership, personal development etc is the idea of taking responsibility for every area of your life. I don’t disagree with that and it has a lot of validity. By taking responsibility for every area of your life the option to change the outcomes falls back into your own hands and doesn’t rest with others. The only time I do have a problem with it is when it becomes a tool in victim blaming or as a blame shifting tool in some form. That’s a discussion for another post though.

In the vein of taking responsibility and being accountable for the outcomes in your life I ‘ve been asked occasionally. “Do you struggle to meet your goals?” Actually. Yeh. I do. We don’t usually set ourselves goals of something we find we are able to easily achieve. Mostly it is going to be something we’d like or want and have yet to be successful at. That we’d really like but have stuggled with doing, getting or having. If we’re lucky we make a plan. We work towards it. We achieve it. Oh wouldn’t it be great if it was always that simple.

It is relatively easy to hold others accountable to their goals and plans and much harder to do that for yourself. I do it for others and I have people in my life that do that for me.  Remind me of the goals and changes I’ve said I want and call me out on my excuses.

Personal goals often requires a change in routine or mindset. Doing the work to achieve the thing and taking time out of your day to do that. My mind like many is a whirlwind of things to do, wants, needs, housework to get done, errands to be run etc.  Excuses and getting in my own way is easy. I can, quite validly run off a list as long as my arm of why I haven’t put in time towards a goal. Prioritising the mundane and little tasks before getting to the ones I actually want to do or say are important to me.

Fear and how hard a thing may be, how much time I’ll need to achieve it. Lack of knowing how to get there.. the path or steps to it very often lie at the bottom of these excuses. Thinking I’ll work through that, start, put in some time after…. I just get X done, or “this thing” achieved. The house under control, on the weekend, the taxes are in, we get through christmas, work has settled down etc. You get the idea.

I did achieve a bunch of goals this year and so I’m going to celebrate those and acknowledge that achievement. They were not inconsequential goals and they’ve contributed a lot of joy to my life. I’ve got a couple of big deal ones that have been on the list a looong time though that I haven’t made any progress on at all. They will take concerted time and effort and I realise I’ve been procrastinating around a bunch of them. Busying myself with other things. All the while knowing the depth of payoff emotionally or otherwise the achieving or even making progress on these goals will bring.

So the beauty and benefits of accountability have been playing on my mind. How I prioritise or procrastinate in different areas. Achieving some things but not others. Preparing but not doing. Getting ready to do “the goal” is still not taking actual actions to achieve or reach “the goal” Looking at the things that throw me off course  or hold me up. The thought patterns or habits that are unhelpful, and I’m thinking of doing things a little differently this year as a result. Being more accountable, prioritising and tracking progress more. Perhaps doing that inside a focused community working on their goals. I’m sure we’ll talk more about this over the coming year.

In the mean time, I’d love to hear what steps or goals are you setting for the coming year. Do you have a plan for getting there and do you have an accountability group. I’d love to hear all about it.