Did you know that you are responsible for every thing you say and do? I could have written a book on all of the excuses that I used when arguing about this with my coach. “But my trauma!” “But they said..” “But I’m tired all the time!” “But the grief!” “But I was drunk!” All valid as excuses. But not at all valid as free passes. At the end of the day, you can try to dismiss your words and actions, but you are still responsible for them.
WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILTY?
Accountability is the willingness (or obligation) to accept responsibility for your own actions, decisions, and the outcomes. It involves being answerable to others and transparent about the results, and ensuring that commitments are met and standards are upheld. It is essential in personal behavior, professional environments, and governance to build trust, improve performance, and maintain integrity.
WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY IN RELATION TO RADICAL SELF-CARE?
To put it simply, when you relate accountability to radical self-care, you’re practicing taking full responsibility for yourself: this is everything you do, your needs, your wants, your limits, your commitments, all of it. It’s answering to yourself for yourself and without the need to have anyone else hold you to it. Because at the end of the day, only you know what you need and what makes you happy. Great personal accountability gives you the ground to actually express yourself as you see fit, free from the opinions and standards of people around you.
THE FIVE STAGES OF RADICAL ACCOUNTABILITY
This is something my coach and I started talking about doing, albeit for a different scenario in my life. Be present, apply what you know, evaluate how you’re doing with the thing, make adjustments where necessary, and stabilize yourself at certain checkpoints as you grow. But the more I thought about this first post for the ABCs of Radical Self-Care, the more I realized that’s exactly what this five step process is. Keep showing up, keep doing what you know, keep checking in with yourself, keep making adjustments where needed, and keep reaping the benefits and making new baselines and benchmarks as you advance yourself. Let’s take a closer look at the steps:
- Show Up For Yourself
– You’re here for you, so you do you, boo. I can only help in so many ways. Hopefully encouraging you to make a habit of showing up and following through on the rest of these steps will help! The first stage – the foundation – of radical accountability is simply showing up. Turn that alarm clock off instead of snoozing, get that morning shower or whatever you do in, stretch and get out the clutter from your sleep, and get going. - Application
– So you’re up and you know what you need, which means you also have an idea of what you need to do. Let’s use an example here of hitting a goal of writing a blog post on accountability. If you saw this post before my edit, you’ll know it was bland as hell and borderline textbook style. I hated it. But I wanted to write the post and see what it would look like in a less reflective style. It was dew dew. But I tried anyway, and I got it done. I applied what I knew of the style I wanted to emulate… - Evaluate
– Which led to my evaluation stage, where I went over what I did to check for errors, and it read like salt-free saltine crackers taste. (What taste? Exactly.) I did not at all like what I was reading, which matched how I felt when I was writing it. - Adjust
– So I came back to rewrite it in a more reflective and inquisitive manner. Currently at the adjustment stage, and I already feel better for going back, reading it, and saying “yeah this is trash,” because now, I am refining it, and it just feels better to write — it feels more natural. Now we stabilize ourselves with this better-chosen path: - Stabilize!
– I am currently finishing the second attempt at this post, and I’m already more accomplished. I just gave a perfect example of having a goal, applying what I know to the goal, evaluating the effort of application, adjusting (hardcore adjusting in this case), and now I’m satisfied because it reads how I’d normally write. This is my new baseline, henceforth — to maintain my normal perspective of reflective and inquisitive/introspective, rather than like a damned textbook.
BENEFITS OF RADICAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Radical accountability, as you see, gives you the chance to be 100% honest with yourself. When you lie to yourself, and things go to Helena, Handbasket (that’s a state, right?), you only have yourself to blame. Or you can be honest and make the adjustments and changes you need to make in order to get the outcome or reach the next level. The best part is that when you seek counsel from within, you know exactly what you can do to be who you are at your core, not something that is pushed around at the whims of others’ opinions. I feel like an impostor for saying that, but it’s true. And the more I evaluate and make adjustments where needed, the easier it is for me to say “I highly doubt so and so is treating me a certain way on purpose” or “seriously, fuck that person, they can stick it where the sun don’t shine, I don’t need that shit in my life.” Because I’ve said both, today, and not about the same person.
Pro tip: radical accountability also shows you that people aren’t out to get you, your fears are out to get you. Your trauma is out to get you. Your chronic illness is out to get you. People? It’s like the gym: it’s full of people worried that everyone is looking at them, when everyone is busy looking at themselves. So read the room and look at yourself more…and strike a pose — nobody will notice but you.
ALWAYS BE RADICALLY ACCOUNTABLE
Practicing radical accountability isn’t hard to put into action if you’re ready to make your fears take a back seat. Fears, the off-decision that you can let yourself go “just this once,” your indecision on things, all of it — radical accountability helps you tell yourself “no.” And just like with people around you, “no” is a complete sentence — especially to you. “I will not be afraid today.” “I will not let myself go, today.” “I will not let my indecision keep me from moving toward a goal, even if I’m not sure it’s what I really want.” Every accepted excuse will keep you down. Every time you tell yourself to do the right thing for yourself, anyway, you’re practicing radical accountability.
