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Picture this: summer afternoon, a tall glass of lemonade, and my July newsletter to spark your inspiration. Let's talk accountability!

Accountability Is Not a Dirty Word

We have an unhealthy relationship with accountability. As ADHD folks, we’ve had more than our fair share of being “held accountable” for things we’ve forgotten, deadlines we’ve missed, emails we wish we hadn’t sent, and projects we haven’t finished. It’s no wonder that we could be repelled by the idea of accountability. It has the foreboding sense of a reckoning for our misdeeds.

But accountability can be incredibly powerful. Have you noticed how it can be easy to do something for a friend, while doing that exact same task for yourself can seem nearly impossible? We are wired to be social creatures. Accountability draws on this social power.

Everything gets easier when “I” becomes “we”.

I was inspired to dive into this topic when I listened to an episode of The One Thing podcast on Demystifying Accountability.

Accountability comes in different flavors. We’ve just been accustomed primarily to the sour and the bitter.

We can think of accountability as having two aspects – value (positive/negative) and timing (proactive/reactive). Negative reactive accountability is the type we’re probably most familiar with.

Negative accountability is punitive and shaming. It provokes our threat response and pushes us into fight/flight/freeze.

Positive accountability is affirming, non-judgemental, encouraging, curious and constructive.

Reactive accountability comes after-the-fact, when we can no longer affect the outcome of our situation. The deadline has come and gone. The deed is done (or undone, as the case may be).

Proactive accountability is given when we still have time to change our behavior to influence the outcome.

This chart shows some of the messages we might experience, both externally and internally, with each accountability flavor combo.

If accountability is both proactive and positive, that’s when it can help us find the most success. And this is why I’m excited to tell you more!

(Positive, reactive accountability is important as well — you need people to help celebrate your wins and support you in your losses.)

Answerable for our actions.

What does accountability really mean? We are accountable when we are answerable for our actions. We are accountable when we make a clear agreement to do something, and then we show up to act on the agreement. We can be counted on.

I think it’s safe to assume that you have good intentions. You want to do good things. The scariness of accountability is in our fear that we have not or cannot follow through on those good intentions. We don’t trust ourselves. We are afraid that we cannot do what we know we ought to do.

It’s like we’re operating in a bubble of hope that everything will work out. We’re afraid that if we prod the bubble too roughly for evidence that things are working, then the bubble will burst, revealing that everything is really in shambles.

We are reluctant, for instance, to look at the details of our bank account and credit card statements. What if it’s worse than we thought?

Or, maybe we’re sure — convinced by our past experience — that we won’t do what we ought to. We don’t want to make a promise we can’t keep.

But this comes from a dangerous way of thinking of those promises. We think we’re supposed to agree to an intention, go away to do it, and then return in triumph (or defeat). It’s an all-or-nothing way of thinking of the agreement and it makes our accountability reactive rather than proactive.

But what if our agreement is to set up a dialogue? What if we agree to regularly, proactively check in about our goals and progress? In this dialogue, we can look closer at what went well and what didn’t go as expected, without the pressure of evaluating success or failure. Proactive accountability creates space for change and growth.

I was able to take advantage of the power of accountability recently when I was struggling to make time to call my nurse practitioner’s office. I had to schedule an appointment to renew my ADHD medication prescription before I ran out of pills. This is a frustrating recurring task that I loathe for multiple reasons. It frustrates me because the process is made more complicated due to stigma and misunderstanding of ADHD. There are many elements of scheduling and timing to figure out. When should I make the call? When should I schedule the actual appointment? I am not a fan of phone calls at the best of times, so it’s easy to forget or avoid making the call. And I can fall into judging myself for avoiding a “simple” task that’s been on my to-do list for two weeks already.

One of my accountability partners is my friend and colleague Julia (she is also an ADHD coach). We talk several times a week, asking each other questions about progress on goals we are pursuing.

Our accountability conversations can be boiled down to seven questions:

1. What were your goals last week?
2. How did you do?
3. How do you feel about that?
4. Based on how you did, what is your new goal?
5. What do you need to do now?
6. What might get in your way?
7. What supports do you need?

I told Julia I was struggling with making the call to schedule my appointment. She asked questions and we decided on a day and time I would call. The agreed-upon time came and went, and I hadn’t called. The next time Julia and I checked in, we reviewed and revised the plan. The second time, with my revised plan, I made the call and scheduled my appointment. On the surface, this might seem simple and straightforward. And in a way, it is. But it also involved a lot of vulnerability and trust.

I had to trust that Julia would believe me when I said that making the phone call was hard, and would not dismiss my struggle as insignificant. And I had to show up a second time and share that I still hadn’t called.

At the same time, my inner critic was trying to tell me “it should be easy”, “why can’t I just find a time and just do it?” and “why do I keep putting it off?”

In other words, my prior experience with negative accountability was attempting to get in my way. Negative accountability uses bullying, threats of negative consequences and shaming to try to change our behavior. But when we feel shame, we are actually less likely to seek ways to change. Instead, we feel disempowered and demotivated, and we try to hide.

I believe that self-compassion is the antidote to negative accountability and the how-to guide for positive accountability. I highly recommend the work of Kristen Neff on self-compassion.

The word compassion means “to suffer with” and it refers to the act of turning towards another being while they are in pain or discomfort. And in addition to holding space for the other’s suffering, it is about helping them find a path for themselves through their discomfort. We are familiar with this feeling of warmth and caring. We feel it when we see a friend or a loved one upset because they have failed or made a mistake.

Self-compassion is turning that caring toward ourselves when we have messed up or are having a difficult time. When we turn our attention inward with self-compassion, we recognize our discomfort without judgement. When we are self-compassionate, we can acknowledge that we messed up, but that our error doesn’t mean we are worthless. It means we are human. This allows us to open our awareness to what we might do differently, without being overwhelmed by shame for our previous actions. This is positive accountability — being compassionate about what happened, and curious about what could come next.

Kristin Neff was recently interviewed on the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. If you are at all skeptical or concerned that self-compassion sounds too soft or like it’s letting you off the hook, I encourage you to listen to this interview to address your objections.

There are lots of ways to structure accountability. I find what works best for me is a minimum of a weekly check-in with my accountability partner. For me, the powerful results go far beyond the (not small) effect of not running out of meds.

My accountability partner doesn’t hold any power or special influence over me. She can’t make me do anything that I choose not to do. And yet, I get so much more done when we meet and review our plans. When I verbalize and commit to a goal and a plan of action, I have to think it through and look for holes. This makes the plan stronger. And I know I will need to provide an update. This creates a deadline and a desire to show up with positive results if I can. But I also know that we can troubleshoot the plan if it doesn’t work, and I can be in a constant process of learning what works for me and what doesn’t. Every single attempt is a learning opportunity.

As ADHD folks, we are often dealing with things as they come. We respond superbly to urgency. However, it’s our personal non-urgent ideas, plans or projects that really have the potential to move our lives forward. We struggle to find time to chip away at them. Nobody else is waiting for a result, so nobody is going to ask about our progress — unless we tell an accountability partner and bring them onboard with our goal. Then we might have a chance to realize our big audacious dreams.

I hope this exploration of the value of accountability has generated some ideas for you. What big audacious dreams would you tackle with the help of a positive, proactive accountability partner?

Until next time!

Warmly,

Randy