Tonight we discussed how to hold yourself, and your clients, accountable - and how to handle it if we/they are dropping the accountability ball.

It has taken me a while to see the difference about being committed to something and being accountable. And while I always thought that you can be accountable to yourself, the definition of “accountable” states:

1: subject to giving an account : answerable <held her accountable for the damage>

2 : capable of being accounted for : explainable

So, being accountable means that you have to answer and explain yourself to someone. So you can’t really hold yourself accountable to yourself. I never saw accountability that way before.

Take, for example, a week or so ago when I woke up early to go to the gym and my fiance stayed in bed and slept. Since he committed himself to going to the gym with me in the morning when I wake up early, I could have held him accountable for not joining me (but I didn’t, because he’s so cute when he sleeps and I hate waking him up). And if he didn’t go and I lost my motivation to go and slept for another hour, then I could have held him accountable - he didn’t own up to his end of the bargain.

If my fiance was my client, I would try to see why he didn’t hold himself accountable for waking up early, and I have a feeling it would tie into commitment. Is he really committed to this goal of losing weight? Why or why not? What got in the way of having him be accountable for this action?

It’ll be interesting to see where the next 2 parts of this class go.