Is Accountability MORE Important Than Your “Why?”

Accountability: anything or anyone that helps you gain mental leverage to achieve the results you desire. — The Accountability Stop

As I’ve been writing about different ways to find the mental leverage we need to make progress on our projects, I’m beginning to wonder: is accountability more important than our “why?”

Popular wisdom, the Simon Sinek cult, and the solopreneur movement have built up the idea that “finding your why” is the holy grail of motivation and a north star to keep us focused.

But most of us don’t have that kind of internal single-minded drive. As a result, we reproachfully tell ourselves that we’re spending our lives on the wrong things. “I’m not passionately pursuing something every waking hour—ergo, I’m wasting my life.” I’m no psychiatrist, but I don’t think that’s a path to mental health.

This blog is a case in point—I don’t wake up every morning thinking about accountability. I have to spend time brainstorming on topics. I don’t just sit down and let it pour out of me. I started The Accountability Stop because I think I have a decent grasp of external accountability methods and how to use them. It’s knowledge I think is worth sharing — or at least a discussion worth having. It’s not my life’s purpose by any stretch.

So what keeps me going? Accountability. I told my accountability buddy I’d do it. I promised on my “about” page I’d do it. I have it on my to-do list. I feel an obligation to keep hitting the “post” button on WordPress.

And looking at a bigger picture—how many people do you encounter who are doing jobs that are 100% aligned with their passion? This past week, I interacted with baristas, hosts, engineers, fast food workers, lawyers, even not-for-profit executives who are all likely to say they are frustrated, tired, and unmotivated in their work. But we all keep working. We keep producing acceptably good, and sometimes exceptionally good work in spite of that. Why?

Accountability.

We make restaurant food that’s tasty, if not healthy, because someone else is going to eat it, because we’re paid to do it, and because it’s how we fulfill our other obligations. The most immediate of these are other people. A poor work product might cause someone to complain and make us feel bad. We exercise because we want to fit into our clothes, or because we want to be attractive to other people, or we feel guilty when we don’t. I want to write a decent blog post not because of my passion for the ideas, but because you are spending your time reading it.

Does it matter if we don’t have a connection with a high-minded “why” in order to accomplish the goals we’ve committed ourselves to? I don’t think so. Accountability to one another is maybe 80% or more of how the world works. (I made that statistic up, what do you think?)

So when it comes to our personal projects, the ones we do care about, why not leverage all those same accountability techniques? I think it might be more worthwhile than I first anticipated when I started The Accountability Stop. We don’t always know why we want to do something. Sometimes we’re just curious. Sometimes we just want to try something different. It’s our art and we want to make it. It’s the music we want to put into the world. But even when we have the drive to work on a project, that doesn’t mean it will overcome the rest of our accountability-driven obligations. We need additional mental leverage.

I think it’s OK to not always know our “why.” If we find the right accountability to help ourselves, we can get it done anyway. Maybe we’ll find our “why” along the way.

What’s Your Account?

Is your “why” the most important part of everything you do? Or does your work mostly depend on some kind of accountability?