Relationships and Personal Accountability

Accountability: anything or anyone that helps us gain mental leverage to achieve the results we desire.

—The Accountability Stop

Do you think J.K. Rowling’s friends and family, who would have known her as “Jo,” were surprised by the industry-altering success of Harry Potter? We all know talented and smart people. If they’re friends or family, we probably want to see them succeed. But if success comes to them, are all of our emotions positive? Is it possible some of Jo’s friends and family may have been a little resentful or jealous?

The relationships we have in our lives—our friends and family—are important for life and well being. But they aren’t necessarily good for our personal accountability.

In our personal relationships, we want to feel like we belong. We want to feel like we’re not alone in our struggles. Emotionally, we want people who feel like they understand where we are and commiserate with our shortcomings and challenges. These relationships are about accepting people as they are, not expecting more from them.

Accountability buddies, on the other hand, are friends who’ve shared goals about how they want their lives to change and improve. ABs are built around expecting more from each other. When we ask for accountability from our personal relationships, we can end up with results we don’t want.

Nagging

Accountability buddies are given certain permission to nag us. Turning a personal relationship into a nagging one may be a Pandora’s box we don’t want to open. It might seem like our parents or spouse nag us all the time, so why not put that to good use? But consider how we feel when we’re nagged in that relationship. Is that a feeling we want to bring to a personal project or goal? Will it help, or will it actually create resistance instead?

Forgiveness

The people who care about us may not make good accountability buddies because they’ll be too quick to forgive. Maybe we said we’d write our song in a month. At the end of the month we have no song. An accountability buddy will know that it was a big deal to you. They’ll ask what happened and what blocked you. They’ll ask about how you can change your approach, adjust your routine, or schedule time to accomplish your goal. 

On the other hand, a friend is more likely to focus on your disappointed feelings and want to make you feel better with forgiveness and comfort. The importance of your project is undercut in an effort to help you feel better.

Distraction

Our friends and family are the people we spend our leisure time with. We have meals, play games, watch TV, and go out. It’s easy to fall into these familiar patterns with our friends. We might pledge to work four hours on a Saturday on our woodworking project. But if our friend comes over to chat while we’re doing it, we may find ourselves chatting more and working less. 

Concern

Family and friends are also concerned for our well-being. This can hamper their ability to be accountability buddies because they might see our project as too much work, too much stress, or too much time away from other things we enjoy.

Opposition

Our loved ones may not say it. They may not consciously think it. But any of the responses above could be subconsciously motivated by a desire to not see a friend improve themselves. 

Turning the tables on this one—say it’s our friend instead of us working toward their goal. When our friend start accomplishing their goals and we’ve made no progress on ours, where does that leave us? We’ll have to congratulate them for succeeding. It might make us feel like a failure. It might make us feel like we don’t measure up. We might feel the pressure of others in our lives asking why we aren’t accomplishing more. 

Finally, we might fear that our friend publishing their book or album could result in Rowling-esque success. Maybe we think their new, glamorous life with new, glamorous people will be unfulfilling. We might try to protect them from that kind of disappointment. But are we really just selfishly trying to keep our friend for our own and not let them grow into the person they could be?

Any of these obstacles might come up if we try to merge accountability with our personal relationships. Tread carefully if you take that route!

What’s Your Account?

Have you ever asked for accountability through a personal relationship? How did it go? Did you experience any of the issues above?