accountable

If you’re a planner like me, you create goals that will help to hold us accountable. When you create a main goal, you may need smaller goals, objectives, or tasks to help reach the main goal.

When creating goals, they need to be S.M.A.R.T. This is an acronym meaning – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant & timebound. The very act of creating SMART goals puts us in a good position to hold us accountable for achieving our goals, or figuring out why we don’t reach them.

There are a number of reasons why we may not achieve our goals. Some things are beyond our control, so we reassess the situation when those things come to light. Our reassessment lets us know that it’s necessary to tweak or readjust the smaller goals, objectives, or tasks in order to achieve the main goal.

In order to keep our main goal in mind, creating weekly goals helps to keep us accountable as the title suggests.  For me, these are tasks, or goals that I document in my calendar on my phone that need to be done to reach said main goal.

Document tasks, objectives, or goals, in a way that works for you.  Some use their phones, others use a paper planner or paper wall calendar, it’s a personal preference. The very act of documentation is a reminder of what we need to do and when to do it.

Accountability is ‘an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions’, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. There is a lot of psychology associated with accountability, but I don’t want to get too in depth with it. For this purpose, let’s just say that being accountable is a good way to personally achieve goals, whatever they may be.

After all, how would you feel if you did the work to create a plan and schedule the tasks and not actually implement any of these activities? I wouldn’t feel so good. It actually keeps me on track to do the work to achieve my goals.  It holds me accountable…