Posted by Jim Bearden on Wed, Nov 04, 2009 @ 03:38 PM
If you’ve read the previous
entries in this series on accountability (and if you haven’t I invite you to do
so; they’re short, so go ahead, read them), then you know that I treat
accountability as something more than fulfilling obligations or meeting
responsibilities. In my work as a speaker, trainer and facilitator, my primary
focus is on Leadership, Sales and Customer Service. I am convinced that
personal accountability is a prerequisite for success in those three
disciplines.
Let me begin this entry with
the following observation:
Personal accountability is not a trait
to be developed
Personal
accountability is a truth to be acknowledged
What that means is that we
don’t have to learn to be accountable; we already are. The extent of our intrinsic accountability—our
ownership of the choices we make and of the consequences those choices
produce—can be readily seen in the quality of our days.
The quality of our days is a
two-dimensional phenomenon. There’s the physical dimension (the outside factors
we encounter), and the emotional dimension (the feelings we experience). While
both dimensions are “in play”, it seems to me that the emotional is the one we
ultimately use to assess the quality of our days. When we experience positive
feelings, it’s a good day, and when the feelings are negative, the day is bad.
Fair enough?
Most people in our culture
seem convinced that the outside factors they encounter (the physical dimension)
cause or create their feelings. These people believe that the quality of their
days is an outside-in phenomenon, that they are at the mercy of the outside
factors. Sound familiar?
Armed with that belief, most
people establish “rules” for what must and must not happen “out there” (in the
physical dimension) in order for them to have good days (experience positive
feelings). Whether we call them “pet peeves”, attachments, aversions or
addictions, these “rules” represent choices we’ve made, choices that set us up
for some interesting emotional swings.
These “rules” range from
petty (how many items people ahead of me in the express line can have in their
carts) to profound (when and how people are supposed to die). The one thing
most of them have in common is that they apply to areas over which we have
absolutely no control.
That being the case, what’s
the one thing we can be absolutely sure of? Our “rules” will be violated; the
outside factors will not always conform to the demands we’ve placed on them.
And when—not if—that happens the quality of our days (as measured by our
feelings) takes a dive, right?
I’m not suggesting that the
outside factors are unimportant or that they don’t have some impact on us,
because they do. What I am suggesting is that the suffering and drama (negative
feelings) we associate with the outside factors we encounter is not caused by
those outside factors, but by the mental choices we make about them. We don’t
have to learn to be accountable for making the mental choices that create
negative emotional consequences; we already do all that. To improve the quality
of our days, regardless of the hands we’re dealt (the outside factors we
encounter) we must acknowledge and improve the mental choices we make about
those outside factors.
Here’s an assignment for you.
I want you to pay attention to your feelings, and when you catch yourself
bummed out (angry, frustrated, etc.), I want you to acknowledge the outside
factor you’ve encountered, and then I want you to identify which of your
“rules” that outside factor has violated. You might pay special attention to
any of your “recurring peeves”, situations in which you seem to have lots of
“rules” that are frequently violated.
That’s it for now. More to
follow. Read the earlier blog entries. Do your homework.
Posted by Barbara Bearden on Thu, Jul 02, 2009 @ 12:13 PM
As the Marketing Director for professional speaker Jim Bearden, CSP, I have found the surge in Social Networking to be an exciting challenge to tackle. After working in this business for 21 years, the thought of reaching so many of you on a frequent basis through the web as we update our information is invigorating! To optimize our presence on the WEB, we have migrated our website to Hubspot and, boy, do I have a lot of work to do!!
We will begin blogging, Tweeting and Facebooking on a regular basis and hope to post useful information to those of you that happen upon our site. Look for articles about Leadership, Accountability, Personal Development as well as the personal tales of Jim Bearden, keynote speaker and road warrior, as he travels around the country speaking at conventions, annual meetings, board meetings, training & kick off sessions, etc.
Blog entries will be posted by both Jim and myself; Jim 's from the Professional Speakers perspective and mine, as the Marketing Director and Social Media Queen of Bearden Resource Group.
I'd love to hear about your experiences as well so please leave comments!
Enjoy!
Barbara