36: Accountability Systems

The Final stage of The Hero’s Journey is often called The Elixir of Truth. It’s when you return home to The Ordinary World and share your newfound wisdom with others. It’s also an interesting time where you need to be in control and set up accountability systems for yourself to stay true on your own path.’ For instance, this week I’m at the Blue Spirit Mindfulness Center in Costa Rica and it’s easy to stay true to my path here. Here, I wake up in an eco-friendly environment, organic food and coffee already prepared and the sounds and smell of the ocean permeate through the air. It’s stunning. I can spend my day focusing on living mindfully. Meditation, yoga, writing... these activities all seem natural here. They fit in. This environment makes it easy to live mindfully. This is the easy part. When the plan takes off the tarmac here and slams me back in JFK Airport in NYC, that’s where what I’ve learned will be tested. Congested traffic and stressed out people in their daily grind are not a very suitable environment to easily practice mindful living. It’s a whole lot easier to join the noise and scream, holler, and get stressed out. That’s where my accountability system comes in and I’d like to share it with you. Throughout my life, I’ve learned a little bit about accountability. Here are The Four Strings to Hold You Accountable so you can continue walking your path on purpose. 1. Duty to YourselfThis is critically important. For you to take actions in the busyness of life that keep you on your path on purpose, you have to love yourself. You have to trust yourself. You have to love your unique beauty. The fact is, you owe it to yourself to live your life on purpose. Life is a beautiful gift and it’s been gifted to you. Use it proudly.   2. Duty to Your Accountability Partners We’re easily influenced by others and I’m one to talk. One of my weaknesses is that I care too much about what people think of me. I want approval from everyone, but I also know that when you do something that matters, you’re going to split the field. Some people will love what you do and others will most certainly not.That’s where your accountability partners come in. Think them as your racing team. Even though you may not practice together every day, you’re there come race day and you have check-ins each week where you talk and share how your training is going. If you don’t show up to practice, you’re letting your team down. I know that when I use to race triathlon, this got me up at 4:30am for one hour swim training sessions. Knowing that others counted on me to do my best helped keep me on track.   3.  Duty to Higher Power You are part of something much greater than yourself. Living on purpose doesn’t necessarily mean that you have one sole purpose in your life. That’s too stressful. Instead, the way I define it is that we have a duty to pay attention to what happens in our life that is beyond our control and live intentionally. Take what you learn from the events that happen outside of your control to further develop your purpose.   4.  Duty to Race Day I believe in race-day motivation. So, think about what your race day could be. Race day is where you show up to perform and everyone gets to see the training you put in. In triathlon, it was really easy to point out those who did train for the months leading up to the race from those who didn’t. Of course, your race day can’t really be planned.   If you’re learning mindfulness and building a steady meditation practice like I am, race day could be those events that happen where we need to practice the art of staying calm. Grace under pressure. Like a car accident or a time of heightened stress. --- Now, of course, there are probably other ways to create an accountability system, but you know that I’m pretty unconventional to begin with so this what I’ve created in my life.  It works for me. But, of course, I’d love to learn more from you on how you set up your accountability system. What keeps you focused on staying true to your own path?