Accountability Is Awareness

I’m a huge proponent of accountability. Maybe it’s because it’s something that I respond really well to, or maybe it’s because we’re so strongly wired to not want to let other people down. 

Diving into the psychology of it, accountability works because the pain of disappointing someone else is more painful than the effort required to do the thing we committed to. It connects to our deepest evolutionary need for safety, which is compromised if the people in our tribe become unwilling to want to support us.

This is kind of contrarian... But I’ve come to understand that accountability is not doing what you said you were going to do. You might think you’re accountable when you worked out because you committed to it, or met a deadline for a project assigned to you. But if you break down the root words - ‘account’ and ‘able’ - it’s much simpler.

To ‘account’ for something is just to keep track of it. To observe it and know its status.

‘Able’ is just capable of taking action, so you’re ‘accountable’ when you complete the act of keeping track.

So you are 'account'-'able' when you reflect on if you did or did not do something. It doesn’t matter if you did it, you just need to honestly observe it.

That’s why in my opinion, accountability is awareness.

But do know, many people have a hard time holding themselves accountable by this definition. They don’t want to own up to the fact that they missed a commitment, so they avoid it and act like it never happened. They feel embarrassed and spin up a story that bends the truth to explain why something happened the way it did, rather than acknowledging the root of the issue directly. 

Answering to the fact that you made a mistake is meant to hurt, and it’s the possibility of pain that drives us to take action. Accountability is awareness, but it’s a catalyst for follow through. 

When we create the right relationship with accountability, we see every shortcoming as an opportunity to learn and strengthen our weaknesses. It’s no longer this tension of someone always looking over your shoulder, but a mechanism for growing into deeper layers of awareness and self-understanding. 

Accountability feels like a bad word because we think it’s a bad thing, but it’s supportive and empowering in nature. The more we allow ourselves to be honest and true to what’s going on, the more agency we have to change our lives to feel more aligned and integrity with the person we want to be.