How Commitment and Accountability Can Help You Achieve Your Dreams

Sticking to your goals is really important if you want to achieve your dreams. It isn’t as easy as saying that you will stay committed though. Not straying from the path is difficult, sometimes the reasons we are sidetracked aren’t even in our control. We keep trying to hold ourselves accountable but fail. We try to say committed but fail. We then give up.

“Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you.”

-George Whitefield

Many people find holding themselves accountable to be difficult. It is easy to come up with reasons to convince yourself that not doing something is most probably okay. Why do we make excuses in the first place? 

We lie to ourselves, we are scared to experiment with our capabilities, we scared to fail; we have fear of embarrassment, fear of rejection, fear of uncertainty; and most importantly, we scared of change. 

Think about what reasons and excuses you often make and you will get some answers. You need to know about yourself – your fears, insecurities, and flaws. You need to know what makes you feel the most under-confident. When you know the trigger, only then will you be able to fight it. Knowing your weak points lets you rise above all fears and achieve self-confidence. 

You must have heard this popular anecdote, it describes what we are talking about really well –

Five frogs were sitting on a log. Four decided to jump off. How many are left?
Five. Why? Because deciding and doing are not the same. It always seems impossible until it’s done. Cut the crap and just do it. Now, that you have decided to keep working, try finding ways to hold yourself accountable.

A good method to help you stick to your goal is to commit to another individual who will make you accountable for it. For example, imagine that you are an overweight person and wish to shed about 30kgs. You draw up a 6-month diet and exercise plan with monthly targets that define the process. 

The next thing you should do is to get in touch with a very close person, a friend or relative, and share the goal you have set for yourself. For example, you can disclose the plan with your brother coupled with the condition that you will pay 20% of your part-time income to him if you fail to meet the target. The prospect of failing in front of your brother and the loss of your income will act as a good motivation for you to try and meet the set goals. 

Begin With Avoiding Comparisons

Comparing your progress to others is you being unfair to yourself. You cannot compare your start to someone’s middle and come out happy from that thought. All it will do is take you down. When you start working at something that involves a huge risk, it is easy to look at everything with distrust, it is easy to compare, it is easy to judge. You have to try to think of ways to change your perspective during crises. You have to actively stop yourself from thinking about external things that are completely out of your control.

External roadblocks are easier to pinpoint, but the ones we create ourselves, our mental roadblocks, those are what stop us from succeeding. Living in denial about how you yourself are holding yourself back is not going to help. Instead of doing that, you need to recognize the signs that tell you that it is time to change your mindset for a better standing point.

When you start holding yourself accountable, it becomes easier to not compare your progress with others. Because you know how much effort you have been putting in, and what changes you can make to move faster. When YOU and YOUR GROWTH are what you are focusing on, it becomes easier to not make comparisons and let that bring you down.

Avoid Dwelling on the Past

You can’t spend your whole life cribbing and blaming the mishappenings of your past. Having a positive outlook is necessary. Every bad experience teaches you a thing or two, let’s focus on that rather than feeling sorry about ourselves. 

So what if you were not appreciated for your work before? That reason is not enough to stop you from trying again. No hard-work goes unrewarded. Failing your commitments can easily break your confidence. You start losing trust in yourself and your promises. This stops you from making further commitments because you know what is going to happen.

This is exactly what you are supposed to fight. Unless you commit to achieving something and learn how to not deter from the path, it will be difficult to work toward something with determination.

Stop allowing your yesterday to ruin your today. Accept what has happened. See every day as a new challenge, a new chapter.

Take Full Responsibility for Failures and Mistakes

We have a habit of blaming everyone or everything else instead of ourselves for our own actions. It is easier to not take responsibility. Life is built on our ability to successfully adapt to the changing conditions that life throws our way. 

Courage is admitting your mistakes and taking full ownership of your mistakes – learning from them and growing. This helps you go further – it enables you to make better judgments and keep little problems from growing into big ones. 

Final Thoughts

Focus on solutions and new opportunities whenever you feel stuck. Seek alternate perspectives by asking other people for their opinions, comments, and feedback, but always be the one to take the final decision. Focus on your strengths and use your weaknesses to better yourself. Same thing when it comes to developing a sense of commitment and accountability. 

Stop saying I won’t, I can’t, I’ll do it later, I’ll try, I may do it, tomorrow, day after… NO! DO IT NOW! If you want to get from where you are in life to where you want to be, you need to avoid making excuses and focus on the tasks that are going to get you there. While these qualities will take you where you want to be – you need to work to develop them as well.