The Hidden Gift Of Being Accountable

Imagine being at your company’s national conference when someone from the stage announces that right now you have the opportunity to promise how much you are going to sell and how many people you are going to recruit in the next six months, and that you can come up to the stage and promise those results to everyone in the audience!

Are you excited to run up to the stage and make those promises in front of everyone there? Let’s say that you are (Hey, a little imagination never hurt anyone!).

You run up to the stage, but before you are handed the microphone to declare your promises, someone gives you a brief overview of what this is all going to look like, namely, a video film will be made of you declaring your promises and then posted on the company front page website, and every month your statistics will be posted in the national newsletter next to your promises.

Are you excited to grab that microphone and take center stage?

This might sound more petrifying than exciting and more intimidating than encouraging, but let’s discover something today by asking why. Why does it occur more like a hardship than an opportunity to make a promise about your intended business results in front of hundreds or thousands of people? It’s rather obvious, is it not? As soon as you boldly make that promise in front of all of those people, you would feel like you HAVE to achieve your promised results.

Welcome to the world of accountability!

Right now the world of accountability might seem less than appealing to you because of the thoughts you have around it. For example, immediately after getting up in front of everyone and promising your intended results you might think: “Oh No! What did I just get myself into?” or “Oh no! What if I fail?" Oh, or how about this one – “I need to be perfect!” (I know. I know. NO ONE reading this article has ever thought that!)

Here is something worth printing – the world of accountability is a privilege not a misfortune!

When you grab that microphone and declare what you intend to do, you immediately move out of the stands as a spectator and step on to the playing field as a participant. As you make that declaration of your intended results, you stop being run by your emotions and you start taking action based on your commitments. The only reason any of that sounds daunting is because you’ve been told that hope is a good thing, and so you just keep hoping that some day things will work out the way you want them to.

Real power exists in making promises, not in feeling hopeful!

The moment you make a promise, you shift the way you see yourself and the way others see you, and yes, you will feel as though you’ve just put your hindquarters on the line! Well guess what?

When you put yourself on the line, the line MOVES!

In other words, as soon as you step up to that line (Think of the line as what you wish could happen in your business and in your life) something even greater than what you’ve been hoping for becomes possible!

Come on! Tell me that isn’t gorgeous!

Look, if you are still feeling shaky or nervous about making a promise, that’s only because you do not yet see all the opportunity that’s available from making a promise. Instead of living in a world of possibility, you are stuck in that world of  “I need to be perfect.” But you don’t need to be perfect because you already are. There’s no one else in the world exactly like you. You are perfectly you!

When you make a promise, you get to discover a whole new world that is decidedly different than that of a spectator in the stands. Instead of talking about the game, you get to play in it – and I promise you, there is so much more to discover in playing the game than there is in watching it. Oh, and I can also promise you that playing feels completely unrelated to needing to or having to.

What if working every aspect of your business truly felt like PLAY?  The thing is, dear Reader, that possibility cannot exist as long as you remain a spectator in the stands refusing to make any promises for fear that you might not live up to them.

I'll let you in on a little secret...

There's no need to worry that you might not live up to all your promises and that you might end up looking bad. When you become someone who makes big bold promises, you become someone who breaks a few promises too. So you look bad for a few minutes. SO WHAT! It's really not a big deal.

What IS a big deal, however, is the gift you discover by making promises and becoming accountable for those promises. This most precious gift gives you far more than you ever imagined because you instantly stop watching and you start playing. And the moment you start playing, you make a difference in the world.

Hmm... I can't resist thinking that you end up looking pretty darn good when you make a difference!