Accountability
January 18, 2009
Holding yourself accountable for your actions is the first step in recovering from any less than optimal situation. By knowing your part in each event that happens in your life, and by becoming aware of your choices that resulted in your experience, you will have the tools needed to reshape your future.
Honesty and Integrity is the foundation of accountability. You can live a life blaming others and continuing to be a victim of circumstance or you can become accountable and own your part in the events that have taken place in your life.
A very simple task that can help you identify your part is to inventory your experiences and resentments. Then acknowledge what those things affected in your life. After writing out the blame game you can now look at the list from a different perspective, and include what decisions you made in each of these events.
Most of us have, at one time or another, denied responsibility for circumstances in our lives. Many of us have gone on to believe the lies, and have even warped the truth to best fit our description of events in order to convince others – and ourselves – we were victimized, and it was not our fault.
It is sometimes necessary to clean the plate and move on. Give up the truth and own your part by being completely honest about a situation to those directly affected. When you take the time to correct past mistakes where you failed to be accountable you release the hold on you that comes with covering up the truth and continuing with the deceit.
Sometimes accountability is not just about the past. As we choose goals and desires for our future, setting intentions and holding ourselves accountable for the actions that must be taken to achieve those goals is vital to success. And it’s work. I believe adhering to the following principles helps us be accountable and, imminently, successful
- Assign yourself daily tasks.
- Don’t back out of your commitments.
- Consider logical consequences and be prepared.
- Model people with responsible behavior.
- Choose a person to help hold you accountable.
2009 – Enter with Honor
December 31, 2008
Lies, secrets and silence are out. 2009 will be the year of honorable living. The old idea of honor where a man’s “word’ sufficed without any guarantee failed us and became a defining ending in 2008. With so many trusts broken and disgraced individuals who left a worldwide thread of victims from their webs of deceit many now enter a new chapter harmed and mistrusting.
It will take a lot to earn back the trust between people, friends, community leaders and our government. Taking someone at their word is passé. You can no longer just get away with a statement of “just trust me” or “I would never lie to you” or “I won’t lose your money.” Man and their word have lost all credibility as the year closes.
Habitual liars have fleeced America and the world at large. It was a way of life this past decade. We became entrenched in the get rich quick schemes and along the way lost our reasoning abilities and conscious awareness. We bought into the fantasies that in time everything would continue to have this growth on paper from which we could legitimize our spending and continue to borrow from the future to pay for the present.
The subject of truth and the foundation from which we must build in 2009 will not come easy. We have become great liars and great believers in the liars. There will be nothing simple about the path and work it will take to live in truth and honor moving forward. The truth is not one thing or a system it is complex and in many cases relies on an entire group, community, company, family etc to all play a part. Within any one entity if one is a liar or less honorable the others will fall with him.
Lies are usually attempts to make everything easier and with accelerated results to a goal. The lies we have been told and believed or shared and started have used some parts of truth that legitimized the lie. The recent discovery process of so many lies and victims has hardly left any honorable person untouched.
The life we all want and deserve will require a layer of trust to fully recover from this year of damages. It is not all doom and gloom the possibilities are still endless as we embark on repairing the cracks in our foundations and rebuild from the good and true. Closing a chapter on the liars and drama will give us more energy to create. This will be the year of a hundred questions. Be a part of this recovery and the solution for 2009.
Reflecting on the methods of your accomplishments
December 27, 2008
As we wind down the year many have created chaos in our world by the methods of their accomplishments. The lack of honesty and honorable means by which they attained their success has hurt many in direct and indirect ways.
As we take a moment to reflect on our own methods of achievement I advise all to take into consideration those that are harmed by means you took that were less honorable. Get advice if you feel the need to come clean and manage the correction properly.
Setting right what you may have done wrong is rewarding but may come with consequence. Being protected and prepared for those consequences will be helpful in turning over your new leaf.
Freedom from concern and worry of looking over your shoulder for who will find out your less honorable methods and expose you will be a relief if you clean up your past right and move forward with better intentions. I recommend getting a team in place to support you if you have struggled with doing things honorably in the past.
There will be more fall outs to come as one large scheme after another is getting exposed. We will have to be patient as the process unfolds and the hurt will be felt on many levels. If anything we should look over the shoulders of the naive who still fall prey to false information and are victims. I recently saw huge advertising coverage on several stations about government home loans available and the company was really just set up to take a large application fee and give false hope to those suffering in foreclosure.
We can not turn our backs on deceitful business practices any more and we can not participate in the problem by using methods of doing business that perpetuate dishonesty. Speak up if you become aware of something that doesn’t seem right and review your own practices and accomplish your success with honesty and integrity the result will be longer lasting.
Don’t be afraid to admit you’re wrong
December 20, 2008
Your biggest mistakes and egocentric decisions that were wrong may be your biggest savior moving forward. Admitting to your mistakes and clarifying through discussion what you did wrong and how you overcame the challenge is a testimonial to your humaness.
It is sometimes draining to listen to people stuck in the whining. Those who are focussed on problems rather than solutions tend to tell the same story over and over again never getting to a solution. Moving these types of clients into solution oriented thinking is not difficult but takes some effort and hand holding. Often a client who has been problem and drama centralized will be quite defensive when you first bring to their attention how often they spend obsessed with the problems and blame before they really can see their part in the whole thing. If their talking about it often enough and it is still a problem they are part of it.
Coaching people into being solution oriented is a productive challenge I enjoy. If a client of mine comes to me with a problem I expect them to solve it quickly and the money they spend for my help best be recouped one way or another within 3 months or I did not do my job.
Part of my job is making others look good. Helping my clients be better story tellers guiding them to talk about a problem briefly but turning to how they solved it quickly is one of my first goals especially with managers. A great leader will get out of the drama and whining phase and move to motivating through experience and success. Your most captivating personal stories that show you are human will include the errors you made and how you stood up to the challenges and solved them.
We all make mistakes, admit when you are wrong and stop trying to force the squares into the circles.
