Once you define success, you alone are accountable for achieving it or for choosing not to achieve it. You decide how, when, and if you bring that definition to fruition. That sharp focus can be what drives you toward a mindset of 100 percent accountability.
Highly accountable people clearly understand that they are accountable for their choices, whether the oucomes are good or bad. They also know precisely what they are accoutble for and to whom they are accountable. That’s part of their mindset.
Highly accountable people have a deep understanding of the consequences of their choices. Their mindset of 100 percent accountability comes, in part, from understanding the benefits of making accountable choices and the consequences of dropping the ball. Most often, those benefits and consequences are extremely personal. Your choices will inevitably affect what you cherish the most: your family, your reputation, your lifestyle, and your health.
Keep in mind how the choices you make to achieve success will affect the people and things you hold dear. What are you accountable for other than achieving success as you define it? To whom are you accountable?
Your definition of success will change as your life does: when you marry, have children, divorce, grow older, become a grandparent, or take an interest in something new.
Incorporating changes into your life may mean your new view of a balanced life might not jibe with your place of employment or your spouses’s view. A spouse who counts on a partner’s high income might not support his or her decision to take even a temporary punch in the paycheck to feed a non-work passion, such as volunteering for a non-profit, playing for a softball team or caring for a sick parent.
For those who do not have families that depend on them, the balancing act is just as important. When you constantly put off friends, hobbies, personal goals, vacation, and downtime because you’re working all the time, you will lose friends and these much loved activities.
Incorporating changes into your life as your circumstances change – instead of pushing them aside because they are not work-related – will give you a better chance for success and could keep you from becoming bitter, resentful, or regretful later. Your definition of success could also stop you from rationalizing poor behavior or taking unethical shortcuts.
The fact is, you have nobody to resent but yourself. Just as you have the best champion for success in YOU. You are accountable for your choice to balance your work and life- or not.