In a way, all the things we do to help us get things done are tricks: Carving up our schedules in this way or that. Eating our biggest frogs first.
Even accountability is a trick of sorts. If you take on an exercise buddy or join a mastermind group or self-help organization like AA or Weight Watchers, you’re hoping that the specter of peer pressure will keep you on the straight and narrow where your stated intentions are concerned. (And if you’re hiring a coach or therapist, in addition some part of you is probably hoping that the pain of spending money will be motivating.)
Of course, we’re usually drawn to whatever outside resources we end up choosing because we think they’ll have tools and processes that will make our task easier, whether it’s learning how to speak or how to avoid lousy relationships. No one wants a dummy partner. But most of the efficacy seems to come from establishing a set of mutual expectations for improvement, and then not wanting to bail on the contract. Why is that?
After struggling with all kinds of change for most of my life and finally, FINALLY, getting a handle on a small portion of it at the ripe age of almost-50, I now believe that the real “magic” of accountability itself lies within me, not outside of me. As I said to my friend Dave Seah in our little Google Wave Experiment, there are no real consequences to not following through on anything I say I’m going to do with any of my accountability setups. No one will make me walk the plank. With the exception of one weird bet with my first-shrink-slash-astrologer (and another, even weirder one with my mother), I don’t ever lay cash on the line, so there’s not even that to lose. While ultimately, my shrink might “fire” me or my friends stop hanging out with me if I set up a really bad pattern of reneging on my word, 99% of the time, no one gives a crap whether I do or do not go through with x, except for their concern as my friends that I stay aligned with my own intentions. And the reason I’m reasonably sure of this is because I love my friends, warts and all; unless they started regularly and egregiously and personally letting me down, or hurting themselves, to the point where my intervention was useless, I can’t imagine throwing them over because they couldn’t quit smoking again.
So how and why does accountability work, really? What’s really going on? Here are some possibilities:
Wherever two or more are gathered in His name
I’m not religious, but there is a sort of freaky hoodoo-something that happens in community, when the purpose of community is for the betterment of anyone in it. Chris Wells, who created the Obie-winning artists’ “church”/show/gathering, The Secret City, and who has begun teaching the Big Artist Workshop in New York and Los Angeles, said it in our final class last Saturday: “Everything is better in community.” (This, after being struck by something extraordinary that came about as a result of a group exercise.)
And it is better in community. I sometimes hate that it is, because I’m an introvert and, as my friend Gretchen Rubin likes to say, most of the time I’d rather just stay at home by myself and read a book all day. But as she also says, she almost always feels better when she rallies and does go to the party, the event, the meetup, the whatever. Part of it is action, of course, but another part is action with other people. We’re these weird, self-contained fragments but we get the Big Juice from proximity to other fragments.
Darkness made light, the invisible made visible
It is really hard to see myself. Really, really, really hard. The beautiful parts and the not-so-beautiful ones.
In company, though, all kinds of things start surfacing, because the people around us serve as mirrors for ourselves, good and bad. I started having massive breakthroughs in self-understanding when I moved past plain annoyance with an acquaintance and allowed myself to consider what in me she was reflecting. People everywhere can serve as mirrors, of course, but when you choose a challenging accountability partner or two, you get improvement on steroids.
In any kind of accountability relationship, though, even one without doppelgangers, a great benefit comes from just dragging my trolls out from under the bridge, or at least getting the gang to train their high beams on them. And professional or not, anyone you’re in an accountability relationship with is bringing a different perspective to your problem, and a much more objective one. That is illuminating, and illumination disperses shadow and darkness.
More on that tomorrow. For now, I would be very interested to hear about other people’s experiences with accountability, specifically, how you think the “hoodoo” works on you.
xxx
c
Image by Mike Baird via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.
heh…. what a great 1st post to read after stumbling upon your blog for the first time.
For me, its that latter concept you just put words around – what I call “Perception is projection”. I believe that we really do project our own “stuff” out on to the world around us… especially with our spouse, running partner, coach and close friends.
My biggest “aha” moment? When I realised my clients were all part of the projection to. And me there’s.
If I stop to think about what it all means too long, I start getting light headed and euphoric, while muttering “We are all one consciousness, experiencing itself subjectively…” and other poignant Bill Hicks quotes.
Thanks for a great post! (and website in general!)
Thanks, Peter. I love when “aha moment” and “Bill Hicks” appear in the same comment. But then, I’ve always been a swirly mix of nonsensical combinations.
As someone who almost always would rather stay home and read a book, and who almost always is glad that I went to the ‘whatever,’ I too am learning to revel in the things that community can give me that I can’t get on my own.
As you say, accountability with individual friends is difficult. Friends are naturally kinder to us than we are to ourselves. As as I learn that I need to be kinder to myself, I realize that the kindness of friends over the years has been immeasurably helpful to achieving whatever emotional balance I have. I’m such a harsh critic of myself that if my messages were the only ones I listened to I’d be a continual walking wound.
I do think that we can help our friends help us be accountable by being clearer about what we need. Friends can be understanding and kind when we’re down on ourselves about not reaching a goal by a certain date, AND, if we ask for it, they also can help us work through what it was that kept us from getting there, and how best to make sure we get there the next time.
I suppose there’s a certain amount of guilt, too (unhealthy as it may be), in thinking you’re annoying people by continuing to whine about the same inability to get where you want to go. It becomes embarrassing to keep coming back with the same old story, so, hey, you just get it done.
You’re right, Clara—I have to be very careful about the friends I choose to have accountability with, and about the things I choose to be accountable for. So far, it’s worked best when we’re friends, but not besties. Although if it got down to it and I needed help adhering to something really difficult, I’m sure they’d be there for me.
Guilt? Don’t get me started…
I just discussed accountability with my girlfriend (in the context of Weight Watchers meetings and public accountability). She disagreed with my statement that some people need to start with being accountable to others before they can become accountable to themselves. She said you should only be accountable to yourself. I agree that it’s important to focus on improvement and not use guilt as a primary motivator, BUT I feel like intrinsic motivation is a b*tch to cultivate and sometimes you might find your way to the real “magic” if you just start somewhere.
I think it’s one of those “fake it ’til you make it” kinds of arguments. And some people are always going to be “pro,” and some “con,” and they’re both right: it’s really a what-works-for-you proposition.
You hit it when you say you might find your way to the magic if you just start somewhere. The powers that be really like earnest effort, it seems.
Great post! I am struggling with this myself as an introvert and an actor (what a terrible combination!). I am at the stage in my career where I don’t have an agent, and no one knows I exist. Putting oneself out there for auditions and classes is necessary to at least make friends, but I bale out of them often because I keep to myself and don’t feel accountable to anyone if I do or don’t go. I also have a few other side hobbies that would supplement my performing career IF I WOULD JUST GET A MOVE ON WITH THEM. Even when I start projects, like scripts, I usually feel, ten pages in, that what I have so far is dreck and I should scrap it an start something else. My intrinsic motivation sometimes needs some outside fuel to conquer those pesky doubts. Your post has definitely given me so food for thought…
Alli, I was an introvert and an actor and it worked out fine. And in hindsight, when I think of a lot of the actors I knew who really worked, there were a number of introverts. Maybe even a high percentage, given that some figures put us at a mere 25% of the total population.
I hope you can find a little jujumagick to help you put aside the naysaying voices. Have you read The War of Art yet? It’s got great stuff to say about it, as does Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Stephen King’s On Writing and Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit.
I’ve been pondering accountability so much lately, mostly because I’m learning in fits and starts how to make it work, and it’s actually spooky how magical it can be. Even if I just send an e-mail to a friend that says “hey, you don’t have to even respond to this, but I just needed to say that I’m NOW going to spend 10 minutes on this thing that I really don’t want to do” – And voila, I do the thing I’ve been actively not-doing for hours/days/longer.
Some blend of intention and commitment that adds up to way more than the sum of its parts. But I haven’t been able to distill exactly *why* with any describable clarity. Guess I’m just still in the simply-grateful-it’s-working phase.
Oh, and I need to post this somewhere: “We’re these weird, self-contained fragments but we get the Big Juice from proximity to other fragments.”
That email trick is a good one. I don’t know how it works, either, but it works; I should use it more often. And just TEN MINUTES. Yeah. I know. Amazing.
Colleen, you have beautifully summed up my philosophy of coaching in these words: “there is a sort of freaky hoodoo-something that happens in community, when the purpose of community is for the betterment of anyone in it”.
I believe strongly that the power of the coaching relationship is the power of communion, not accountability. Accountability implies an measuring up – it is a number word. I don’t like number words much. However, as a coach, the idea of accountability comes up a lot. It seems to be inextricably linked to the profession.
I like the idea of accretion instead: “accretion is a process in which the size of something gradually increases by steady addition of smaller parts”. When I can hold your intention with you in a loving space, it is like an incubator, accreting more energy and life and juiciness to the thing that is wanting/needing to crack out of that shell. (Dying to be born, perhaps
As you said – the magic is within – within each person and within the relationship.
xox
L
I’ve never thought about coaching in that way, but then, I tend towards brutality in those situations. (God, it’s a miracle *anyone* wanted to work with me, now that I think of it!)
Thanks for the excellent food for thought.
It’s funny that I was just writing about accountability today and community was exactly where I ended up. At first, I thought that by making my goals public, I was going to be accountable for them. If I blog about training for this race, my blog readers will want to know how I’m doing and keep me on track. Baloney. It’s still just me writing by myself and running by myself.
I think the trick with accountability is to build an offline, real-world community that you actually have to look in the face. An example that springs to mind is my experience with CrossFit. It provides an amazing workout, but more importantly, an atmosphere of being accountable to all those in class with you. We have a coach, but in the small group setting, we are competing with each other, while at the same time, shouting out encouragement. There’s just something about having people expect you to be someplace at a certain time. And then clap when you’ve completed something you never thought you could do.
I love the CrossFit example b/c it shows it’s not all about sunshine and puppies and kumbay-fucking-ya. People are messy—messy humans, as my friend, Brenda, likes to refer to us—and we have jealousy and envy and competitiveness and all the rest to grapple with as much as love and goodness. I think embracing ALL of it, and having reliable structures that take that into account, is excellent.
Accountability to others totally backfires on me. It turns into pressure, and my reactions to that feeling of pressure take me far away from my original sense of purpose. I’m a therapist myself, so I can tell you all about where and how this came about in my childhood – narcissistic parents who needed me to be perfect – but for me, the path to doing hard things has to detour around other people’s expectations. Then again, I’m also an extreme introvert who feels better after going out in company maybe once every six months. What works for me is making actual time and space, small chunks of time especially in the beginning, for what I want to do. And knowing really clearly why I want to do it. And really wanting to do it.
I get that. I do. There are some things that really work better for me if I handle them privately. And I’m a stubborn, ornery cuss (ask any of my exes or my family), so I’ll really dig my heels in if I decide I don’t like the parameters of something.
It’s because of this that I’ve been so surprised at how accountability has started to work for me in some situations. I don’t know if I used to be more of a loner or if the new, older me is just mellower and more people-friendly.
What I have realized is that it’s very dangerous for me to work off of assumptions, even ones based on long-term knowledge. This is where Byron Katie’s questions have the most juice for me. That second and third one, in particular.
Colleen:
Wow, some great thoughts on accountability. As someone in transition, I’m a member of a local career center. I currently attend what is called a peer networking group. There’s usually 10 or 15 of us who go around in a room and talk about what we’re going through…good stuff and bad. The group is led by someone with a big-picture, spiritual perspective. I find these sessions powerful because I learn that my situation isn’t that unusual. We get input and feedback. This is not an accountability group, but if someone needs a bit of a “push,” they get it.
I’m thinking of joining an accountability group soon and I’m not sure if or how this will help me. As you indicated, no one is going to smack you around for not following through with things…but I do believe in strength in numbers.
Aren’t we all in transition, Tim?
I agree—a huge part of what works is the OMG—not you, too! factor.
Give it a go, the old accountability group. I’d be interested to hear how it works for you and what you learn from it.
I have missed you Colleen! I love what you said about us being better because of community and how that relates to accountability.
I have been struggling with making time for blogging partially because I feel accountable to the bloggers I follow. The blogging community is one that requires constant attention and participation in order for it to meet the needs of its members and in order for it to continue to function. I haven’t been participating for the last month or two, and yet, it still continues to exist. Does this mean that no one missed me? Is that good or bad? I like the idea that I haven’t let anyone down by not commenting on their blog, but at the same time, there is something validating about being missed, about having people wonder where you have been and ask about your welfare.
That’s saying a lot and answering nothing. Thanks for the opportunity to brainstorm.
Okay—I should probably write a whole post on this, b/c I think it’s something a lot of people who write and hang out on the Internet worry about, but believe me when I say this: EFF THE BLOGGING COMMUNITY.
Not that it isn’t wonderful that we have this fantastic tool to share with and kibbitz on and use to feed us good info, but it’s a tool that’s there to facilitate real life, not the other way around.
Of course it’s nice to be missed! And to have your comments (or lack of them) noticed! But this blog-o-sphere is too vast and too random, when all is said and done. It’s going to be those people with whom you’ve been emailing or talking or seeing regularly and then stop who are going to miss you. Which is as it should be!
That said, if you’re posting to your own site regularly and have developed relationships with people there, well, sure, they’re going to miss you. Of course!
But never feel like you’re being held accountable to bloggers you follow. I am happy you are here now, and that you read this and found it useful. If you go away and never read anything else but do your thang in your way, I’m a happy woman. You owe me nothing. Unless I lend you five bucks. But even then, everyone knows you only loan what you don’t expect to get back, right?