Bridget Jones’s Diary – Accountability Techniques at the Movies

Accountability – anything or anyone that helps you gain mental leverage to achieve the results you desire.

The Accountability Spot

In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget begins a diary on new year’s day to chronicle her attempts to stop smoking, stop drinking, lose weight, and find her Mr. Right. 

I should clarify that I’ve only watched the movie, I have not read the book. 

Note to self: put BJ’s Diary on reading list for intellectual stimulation when not preaching about accountability …

Craig Stevenson, Random Thoughts

Journaling is a useful accountability technique I’ve used myself. Here are some examples: 

• Track workouts with reps and weights used 
• Log calories or meals
• Tally a daily word count for a writing goal
• “X”-out check-boxes for a daily habit

Bridget had varying degrees of success through her year. 

“Alcohol units: 5. Drowning sorrows. Cigarettes: 23. Fumigating sorrows. Calories: 3,856. Smothering sorrows in fat duvet.”

― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

But our heroine stuck with the process. The measure of any accountability method is how well it spurs us into consistent effort. Which brings us to the biggest challenge with journaling as accountability: this method is all on us. (See below for an exception.) If you like to keep a journal and you don’t want to publicly declare your goals, then personal journaling could be ideal. For me, a systems that creates checkboxes for a regular habit is not only easy, I find it fun. (Side note, I’m an enneagram 3, and we love making checklists and crossing things off.) 

An Accountability Secret

“You only get one life. I’ve just made a decision to change things a bit and spend what’s left of mine looking after me for a change.”

― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

Journal accountability is especially useful for goals we’d prefer to keep private. Goals that would create more embarrassment than motivation if publicized to the world.

I’ve used journal accountability lately for tracking physical therapy stretches for a case of tennis elbow. I jot in four boxes in the morning and put an “x” in each box to mark that I’ve done my stretches. Writing it down gives me a visual record of my progress and consistency. 

Journal accountability can be personal encouragement as well. If we document how we feel we’re doing along the way, we’re writing our own self-help book. Or maybe “motivation book” would be a better name for it. Sometimes the philosophies of self-help authors ring false with us. Or they just don’t quite hit the mark of what motivates us. When we’re writing for ourselves, we can avoid the pitfalls of our own inner critic — or at least call out the inner critic — and emphasize the motivations that resonate.

It’s important that we stay positive, or at least end our entries positively. Journals can also be a place to complain about lack of progress or listing our excuses. The authors of The Oz Principle would call excuses, blaming circumstances, or blaming others as “below the line” thinking. They recommend staying “above the line.” Focus on what we can control. Focus on the positive steps we can take moving forward. Don’t dwell on failures in the past. 

Sometimes we get down on ourselves if we “break the chain” or fail at our accountability. Andy Matuschak at Square Signals has a tracking system to help form non-daily habits by focusing on how many times we perform the activity in the past seven days. The moving window gives us flexibility to perform the task when we can, so we don’t get discouraged by a single break in the chain. See his article on smoothly ratcheting habits here.

Journal Buddy System

If you don’t enjoy a self-monitored approach, I still have a journal accountability option. A previous accountability buddy and I used a combined journal technique. We created a shared Google sheet where the rows were habits or projects and the columns were days, with one worksheet per month. Each day we would fill in whether we did or didn’t work on each goal. We included auto-formatting so that responses that started with Y for “yes” turned green and responses with N for “no” turned red. Then we had a color tracking of how well we had done. When red was prevalent, we knew we needed to adjust our goals, our approach, or both.

Accountability = Happiness?

One last thought from BJD:

“It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.”

― Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary

I agree with that philosophy of happiness. That’s why I’m interested in accountability. I want to keep creating, growing, and learning. I hope some of these articles are helpful for you as well!

What’s Your Account?

Have you tried journaling for accountability? How did it go?