2020-10-28 Make yourself account

When you combine all the above — carefully picking projects, being strategic, focusing on small actions, and having good intentions — what you end up doing is what, ultimately, we all need to do to achieve our goals in life:

We take responsibility for things without waiting for the world to give it to us.

No more “that’s not part of my job.” No more “it wasn’t my fault.” I know it wasn’t. It almost usually isn’t. But the people we admire take responsibility anyway. They always have skin in the game. We need to do the same.

There are two ways to hold ourselves accountable: internally and externally.

Internal accountability means keeping the promises you make to yourself. That’s very hard without voicing them and so, for most of us, internal accountability isn’t enough, especially in the early stages. Sticking to your own deadlines is hard when there’s no real punishment for not meeting them.

But when you say “I will do this for you on that day” and then don’t deliver? Ouch. That hurts. As a writer, you might say: “I will publish an article every week and send it to you via email.” Sure, in the beginning not that many people rely on you, but with each next person choosing to take you up on your promise, the pressure to keep it grows. That’s external accountability.

What’s beautiful is that, over time, external accountability begets internal accountability. Since you’re taking your own, irrational, self-imposed goals and deadlines out of your head and into the real world, relying on yourself gets easier — even without externalizing every aspiration. With every kept promise, you’ll trust yourself a little more.

Soon, you’ll deliver lots of value to many people — and can do so on schedule.