What Does It Mean to be Accountable?

Welcome back. Today, we're going to talk about accountability. So, what does it mean to be accountable and what does that look like in our daily life. So, today we're going to talk about accountability and what it is and how taking accountability for our lives actually empowers us and frees us up. To change from where we're at and to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish in our life. So, in life, we all have one basic choice to make and that choice is "Do we want to be a victim or do we want to be a hero? And another way of looking at that is, you know, do we want to be a slave? Or in bondage? Or do we want to be free? So, let's look at these two different choices. A victim is a person who says or thinks things like, "Why me? And life isn't fair or it's not my fault." And it's all about blaming. A hero on the other hand is a person who says or thinks things like, "Why not me? and I am responsible and accountable for everything in my life." So I'm responsible and accountable. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm responsible for everything that happens to me in my life. But I do have a choice as to how I respond to those things that happen to me in my life. So, think about why this is the way that it is. So, if I'm of this mindset of "Why me? and life isn't fair and it's not my fault. And everyone else is to blame for the circumstance of my life. Then how much control do I have over my life?" Here's an example, let's say that I work for a company and the company has say a 401k or they have some kind of a retirement plan. And I put money into that retirement plan over the years. And let's say I've worked for the company for 25 years. I'm getting close to retirement. And somebody in the company misuses the money or they mismanage the fund or let's say I've got retirement with the company and I've worked for them for 25 years and the company goes out of business. And everything that they had set aside for my retirement all goes away. Now, is that fair? No. Is it right? No. Is it my fault? No. So, does it really matter though if it's my fault or if it's the company's fault? If I put the blame on them, does it really change the situation? No, but where does accountability come into play? So, think about this. Who is it that made the decision to work for that company? Was I forced to do that? Or did I decide to do that of my own free will and choice? Well, I chose to do that. So, I'm accountable for that choice. Who's responsible for the decision to rely upon their retirement plan or to invest in their retirement plan? Did anybody force me to do that? Or could have I set up some other type of retirement plan outside of the business? Well, I'm the one that made the choice. So, that may be kind of a hard pill to swallow. And we don't like looking at that because it's easier to sit back and to say, "Well it's not my fault. They did this and they did that and they created the situation that I'm in." That may be true but it doesn't change the situation that I'm now in. So, If I'm of a different mindset where I realize that, "No, I'm the one that made the choice to work for this company, to believe that they're gonna provide for my retirement. It didn't happen, it goes away. Well it frees me up now to say, "Okay, so, now what? So, this happened to me but what am I going to do about it now. And I can use that opportunity over here as a way to learn and to make different decisions and choices moving forward. If I stay over here in the blame game, I don't learn anything. Because the person or individual that's responsible for the situation that I'm in is somebody else which I have no control over. And so, blame just keeps us stuck in our life. Accountability is really about empowerment. It's what puts us in a place where we can take responsibility for our choices and then we can make future decisions and choices based on the lessons that we learn from the choices that we've made. So, here's another example. Because sometimes, again, people don't like looking at this because we feel like, "Well I'm not responsible for everything that happens to me in my life." A few years ago, I was driving to work and going down a street and there were several intersections and I was driving through an intersection that had a yield sign. The car ran the yield sign and ran into me. Broadsided me and totaled my vehicle. Was that my fault? No. I was in the right-of-way, I was doing what I should have been doing and yet this still happened to me. Sadly, 2 weeks later, I was driving down that same street. About the same time of day and I got one block further down the street. And there was a stop sign at that intersection. And the car round the stop sign, broadsided me. And totaled that vehicle. Cracked my ribs and went to the hospital. So, I could look at that and go, "Wow! Life is unfair. Things happen to me that are not my fault." And I could have made a decision from that, that you know, what driving is unsafe. I don't think I'm going to drive anymore. Or I can look at it and say is there anything that I can do in the future to maybe make myself a little bit safer. Yeah, I could choose to drive down a different road. I could choose not to drive in my situation. What I did was I tend to be a little bit more cautious going through intersections. So, I tended to notice if there was another vehicle coming and not just expect that they're going to stop or yield. But do a little bit of defensive driving. And so, in our life, there are a lot of things that happen that are unfair. Life in a sense, is not fair. Things happen all of the time to us that are unfair. But it does give us opportunities to learn from that and to choose how to respond. And to hopefully make better choices in the future. So, truly, if we want to be free in our life, if we want to be free to make change and to progress, to improve and to learn. It's important that we take accountability for the decisions and choices that we make. Again, not in a blaming way but in a way of empowerment. That allows us to make decisions and choices moving forward that will give us more of the outcomes that we want. So, accountability is one of those foundational principles that we are accountable for our life. We really can't give it away. Even if we want to, we can blame others. But the consequence of the situation or the event still affects us individually. And so, my hope for all of us is that we will choose to be heroes in our life that we'll choose to be free and then choose to make decisions and choices that will give us more of the happiness, more of the healthy relationships and more of the success that we want in our life. Thanks for being with us today. Hopefully you found today's conversation helpful and useful. And helps you to think about, you know, are you more of a victim in your life? Or are you more of a hero? If you have questions or want to know more about what we teach. Visit our website below. Subscribe to our channel and come back and visit us again.