Written by: Ayana Band, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I look back at the person I used to be with compassion; I smile with admiration and reverence for her and who she is becoming. She used to be overwhelmed by anxiety, overthinking, procrastinating and engaged in numbing and avoidance activities; she even managed to live through the lowest parts of depression. Today she is me, a vision now being experienced as reality; a content and peaceful being living life on my terms, living successfully.
In what follows I will be sharing with you one secret to success I learned, tested, proven and live by. As I continue to unlock and learn these secrets I will share them with anyone ready and willing to learn and apply them to their own lives; after all, I do believe everyone deserves the success they desire in life.
The not so secret, secret, ACCOUNTABILITY
There’s a saying that accountability breeds responsibility. You may be wondering what that has to do with success, let me explain.
Accountability is defined as accepting responsibility for your actions, decisions, and outcomes. It can also be defined as the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable. Accountability is an essential component of success, in all areas of life, personal, professional and business. Accountability requires you to accept responsibility no matter the outcome.
This plays into success because success only comes by being responsible for all your actions decisions and outcomes, no matter what the outcome, thus having accountability and being accountable is important for success.
Benefits of accountability
The ultimate prize is success, which accountability lends itself to, but success requires a few ingredients, the benefits of accountability provide some of the flavoring for success. Benefits of accountability include:
Improved performance ‒ knowing someone is watching, will review your performance, and you will perform at a higher level. When you are only accountable to yourself it is easy for us to show up half-ass or not at all for ourselves but when we know there is someone to answer to, we put out our best.
Increased trust & confidence ‒ whenever someone follows through our trust and confidence increase in them and whenever you deliver on your promises people’s trust and confidence in you build.
Increased focus ‒ While accountability is on the who, the focus is on the what. Having absolute clarity on what needs to be achieved increases focus as the “who” has been decided.
Other benefits include; decreased stress, learning from failures, higher quality of work, reduced errors, improved time management, better decision-making, achieving your specific goals, uprooting procrastination cycles and personal development.
Being held accountable typically leads to more self-reflection and self-improvement resulting in greater self-awareness and personal growth. Overall being held accountable we achieve our goals and improve overall performance.
Types of accountability
Accountability can come in many forms and knowing the types of accountability can help you decide which one or which combination will best meet your needs.
External accountability
These can help you turn internal expectations into external expectations and make them easier to prioritize.
Social ‒ peer groups, support groups, online community or a partner. An accountability partner could be a friend, colleague or anyone that you can confide in and willing to call you out lovingly when you are not taking the action you committed to.
Public ‒ similar to social but doesn’t exist within the confines of a community, when tackling personal challenges, by sharing my goals with my social media following, and documenting my process.
Professional ‒ Hiring an accountability coach like myself will help you gain clarity, set goals that are the right size for you, help you focus, provide resources and time management as well as increase your productivity.
Masterminds provide the opportunity for brainstorming, problem-solving, decision making, and sharing of ideas, solutions, and resources.
Coaches and masterminds deliver immediate and long-term advantages for both you and your business by helping you develop the skills and knowledge that you need to achieve success.
Personal accountability
Ownership ‒ Continually consciously choosing to take ownership
Commitment ‒ Dedicating yourself to the task at hand
Willingness ‒ Taking action because you want to and not because you feel obliged to.
Hold yourself accountable by regularly reviewing your progress and making adjustments as needed.
Accountability tools
Calendar; set deadlines and reminders. Your subconscious mind uses deadlines as “forcing systems” to drive you, consciously and unconsciously toward achieving your goal on schedule.
Alarm; serves as a reminder, our brains can only do one task at a time efficiently, remembering to take action is not the best use of our mental energy, utilize alarms.
Habit tracker; a system for tracking your progress. I personally like the mandalas, the sense of pride and achievement when it is all colored in.
When to use accountability
For goal-setting and achievement
Increase productivity
Striving to accomplish that is challenging
Lack clarity, no actionable plan
Need to discover self-sabotaging tendencies
As a feedback mechanism
For the follow-through, push past procrastination
Conclusion
It is undeniable, having accountability is beneficial, it increases the likelihood of success. If you are ready to maximize your productivity, increase focus and get results I will keep you accountable & taking action with incredible clarity and focus. Join my Time Mastery & Accountability Mastermind or schedule a call to discuss how we can work together.
Until next time, whatever you do, make a difference in your own way!
Namaste!
Ayana Band, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ayana O a highly transformative Business & Mindfulness Consultant, Yoga Teacher and Speaker, combines results-proven methods and mindfulness techniques to help her clients transition from B.O.P.S. (burnout, overwhelm, procrastinating, stressed) to T.O.P.S (triumphant, organized productive, successful), mindfully. Ayana helps to, bring harmony to her clients through creation of new and more productive habits, a high level of accountability, turning goals and ideas into real results and increase success, through mindfulness.
