Accountability is Courageous
By John G. Miller
A classroom full of college students waited expectantly as their esteemed Philosophy 101 professor began passing out the final exam booklets. He'd told them it would be an essay test with just one question to answer and that they each would be required to write approximately 500 words.
When every student had a booklet in hand, the instructor walked over to his laptop and pushed a button. Upon the large screen in front of the class appeared the single exam question:
What is courage?
Everyone went to work. With heads bowed and pens scribbling across paper, all were intensely focused on the answer they would create, hoping for that outstanding grade they sought. The teacher turned to his computer to keep busy for the next hour.
But then, out of the corner of his eye, there was movement. Looking up, he saw a student smiling at him as she dropped her exam booklet into a wire mesh basket on his desk and strode briskly—confidently—out of the room. Bewildered, if not stunned, the professor reached into the basket to grab the student's "work." Wondering how in under a minute the student could've answered the question "What is courage?" he turned to page one and saw the young woman's entire answer:
This is.
Courage comes in all forms and we could cite many examples, but instead let's make the link between courage and personal accountability, for one can't exist without the other. Let's first list, though, some common life problems:
• The project I'm leading at work is behind schedule.
• My team is not performing.
• The company I started isn't making it.
• I am not hitting my sales goal.
• I am overweight and out-of-shape.
• My relationships are suffering.
• There is tension in my marriage.
• My son is not obedient.
• My daughter will not listen to me.
• I have no friends.
• I am unhappy.
In light of these life problems, how do courage and personal accountability intertwine? By saying these words:
I own it.
Anything else is blame, excuse-making, and a lack of personal responsibility. And dare I say, immature.
Sometimes people use the phrase "man up"—which doesn't really seem to work for women, but to instruct someone to "person up" sounds awfully odd. Yet the message behind "man up" is what we're talking about here, isn't it? It takes courage to say "I own it!" with no ifs, ands, or buts. And in that moment, when I am willing to speak those three courageous words, I am practicing personal accountability. I am outstanding.
So, to show my courage—and to be courageous—I will ask The Question Behind the Question (QBQ), "What can I do today to own a problem in my life?"
Some things just aren't that complicated.
16 years old. I was pretty much an idiot, but I thought I was a genius. I guess the term sophomore was perfect for my sophomore year, as I was quite sophomoric. Things went bad that year, and it was the first time I remember sitting back and thinking who I was as a person. I looked at myself and didn't really like what I saw. At this time, everyone wanted to help me out become better, but the thing was was it was all for not, had I not taken action myself.
I was lucky though, I had a great family and an amazing circle of friends. Most of these people have no idea what a help they were during this time in my life that I was going to change. It wasn't their words saying how smart I was, How much potential I had, or any other words of encouragement. I had heard those my whole life. It was the fact that they were there, and that when I took on this new look on life, they were going to be behind me.
So what was this amazing change? It was literally based off of a single quote on a RCA Senior Team Shirt that said, "I am the only one responsible for my success and failure. I accept the Challenge!" It was on the back of the shirt for all of us to see as our teammates wore the shirt to meets and practices. It wasn't the shirt from that particular year, but an older one that I saw a teammate wear one day. That same year, was the year that we did US History, and I was also enamored with the ideas of Teddy Roosevelt and his "Rugged Individualism."
At this moment, I did my best to not make excuses anymore. Sure I complained and avoided doing things still, but I began to accept the result of those choices as my own, and not that of anything or anyone else around me. My failures weren't because of teachers, my coaches, my parents, my friends, or someone else. They might have played a part in a failure, but then I chose to deal with the individual for that particular endeavor. I blamed myself for bad choices in failures that I did, whereas before I always tried to sweet talk my way into making others believe it was the fault that I had no control over.
When I began it was really tough to give myself this blame, but I took it. It came to the point that no one could get mad at me as much as I got mad at myself. This was the first step that I knew I was changing; I wanted to be better. I had to then learn that I wasn't going to succeed every time, but that if you analyze all the choices that led to that result, then you could figure out why the result didn't end up as you had planned. Then I would figure out what I wanted for my next result, whether it was the same goal, a higher goal, or a goal that I really wasn't interested in any longer.
It became my challenge, and I accepted it. I got better at it as I got older, and I became better at looking and finding ways to make me better. I never accept that I do things right, but always willing to examine anything to see if it is a reason why I didn't succeed. It is hard at times to admit that you do something wrong that you have done for so long, but sometimes it is those very things that are your biggest flaws.
Own it. It is a challenge to accept responsibility. It is hard to deal with it at first, but it becomes great in the long run. Don't ignore your support system though. They may become bystanders, but they are important. It is the mindset that you are responsible, but let's not be naive, those around you help support you, and allow you to not succeed and to be able to try again.
No comments:
Post a Comment