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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 2 years ago
Most people associate being accountable or having accountability with accepting responsibility for your actions and taking ownership of what you say you’ll get done.
The question is, why do some individuals seem more able to get things done while others tend to procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate?
Some claim that it comes down to your levels of self-discipline.
I certainly believe this is a key factor but also believe that it is wise to look at what’s most important to the leader or what their highest values are first to uncover the secret behind why their higher levels of self-discipline are occurring.
When you do something that’s truly important to you, that's highest on your list of priorities and your values, you're most likely to be spontaneously inspired and disciplined from within to get it done.
Therefore, if someone asks you to do something that’s high on your values, you'll likely get it done because it’s important to you.
However, if someone asks you to do something that’s lower on your values, lower on your priorities, something you may feel obliged to do because you perceive that it’s something you 'ought to’ do, are ‘supposed to' do, 'should do', 'got to' do, 'have to' do, and 'must do’ (instead of 'love to' do), you’ll likely procrastinate, hesitate and frustrate.
You’ll also tend to give up more easily if it becomes challenging.
You tend to only be truly accountable to what's most important to you in life – whatever is aligned with your highest values.
It is therefore wise to identify your unique set of highest values if you would love to be consistently an accountable and disciplined individual.
You may be surprised to know what happens deep within your brain when you live congruently with your highest values versus when you don’t.
In essence, when you do something that’s high on your list of values, the blood, glucose, and oxygen go into the most advanced part of your forebrain, the medial prefrontal cortex also known as the executive center.
This part of the brain is involved in inspired vision, strategic planning, executing those plans, and self-governance. So, you're automatically more accountable when you're setting goals and objectives that are truly aligned with what you value most in life.
On the other hand, when you do something that’s lower on your values, the blood, glucose and oxygen go into the subcortical portion of your brain, the amygdala.
This part of the brain is involved in survival based fight-or-flight reactions, emotional decisions, avoiding pain, seeking pleasure, and immediate gratification. So, you’re more likely to procrastinate, hesitate and frustrate – impulsively surf the internet, eat low priority foods, chat to co-workers or distract yourself with other low priority tasks – instead of completing your deliverables.
Let’s look at how this may play out in the workplace.
Suppose an employer or manager hires someone for a specific job and does not first determine whether the responsibilities that will be required of them are in alignment with their true highest values, the business will run the risk of hiring an individual who may quickly become disengaged and less likely to get the job done.
They may also require continued external motivation and micromanagement for them to reach their deliverables.
Contrast this with someone who can see exactly how their job duties will help them fulfill their highest values, loves to perform those job duties, is intrinsically inspired to complete each task, less likely to give up when faced with a challenge, and who is proactive and accountable.
I have a high value on teaching, so you can rely on me to be doing that each day. I have a very low value on cooking and driving, so you can’t count on me to be cooking or driving. In fact, I haven't driven a car in 32 years.
In other words, if you expect me to do something that is low on my values, you're likely to be let down.
In the same way if you hire someone to do something that’s low on their values, you’re likely to be let down.
Accountability is an expression of living congruently and being aligned with what you value most.
It’s one of the reasons why I have the FREE Demartini Value Determination Process on my website.
When it comes to hiring staff, I recommend that you use this process to assess individuals you’re interviewing until you find out what they truly value.
It can be wise and fruitful to first ascertain if they perceive the daily actions you’ve outlined in your job description, will help them fulfil their highest values.
Simply put, if they can’t see how specifically a task or action will help them fulfil what they value most, they’re unlikely to be accountable in that area and most likely they’ll require reminders and repeated motivation to do their tasks and micromanaging.
You can apply the same process to yourself by identifying your unique set of highest values, and then asking yourself, ‘How are each of my job duties one by one helping me fulfil my highest values?’
If you can't see how your daily tasks are helping you fulfil your highest values, you’re going to be less likely to want to go to work, and more likely to perceive yourself to be drained, frustrated and distracted.
You become engaged in what you value most; you're only reliable, disciplined, focused and truly accountable when it comes to the things you value most.
As I said earlier, when you do something that’s high on your values, the blood, glucose, and oxygen go into the most advanced part of your forebrain, the executive center.
When you’re operating from this level of brain function, you tend to be most objective, balanced, and neutral when doing something that’s truly meaningful to you.
It’s also when you’re likely to be more resilient, adaptable, accountable, and able to get things done. You’ll tend to walk the talk, lead from the front, and trust your own decisions and actions instead of offloading your decisions onto others, which is the follower's mentality.
As such, you’re positioned to become an unborrowed visionary instead of a borrowed visionary, and stand on the shoulders of giants instead of in the shadows of giants.
To recap so far:
If you would love to make a difference, be authentic, more productive, and be inspired by your life, it is wise to identify your highest values, live by priority and learn to delegate lower priority tasks.
Doing so allows your executive center in your outer forebrain to come online instead of the amygdala in the subcortical region of your brain so you can be more balanced, objective, accountable, resilient, proactive and in command of your day.
As I often say in my presentations, if you want to thrive and be the master of your destiny instead of a victim of your history, it’s wise to prioritize your daily life.
As long as you’re living by priority, you're going to be more productive and have more fulfillment.
I've seen individuals make a list of what they would love to accomplish that day, prioritize it, stick to it and knock it out of the ballpark. This involves saying no to things that are lower in priority; no to all the opportunists and distractions; and staying focused on what is most meaningful and important to them.
As a result, these individuals were able to get amazing things done, be resilient and adaptable, and go home at the end of the day feeling inspired and present instead of tired and reactive.
I’ve also seen people choose not to take command of their priorities. As such, they’re likely afraid to say no, inundated by unexpected requests, and spend the day focused on lower priorities instead of the things that inspire them most.
The result is that they are often disengaged, exhausted, unfulfilled, and overwhelmed, while also feeling unproductive and in search of immediate gratification to soothe them.
You might recall a time in your life when this happened, a time when you may also have felt you were focused on lower priorities and distractions and you were experiencing high emotional volatility. This is what is known as Systems 1 thinking where you tend to react before you think, say things you may regret, and spend your days living in a fantasy in an attempt to escape reality.
In other words, feeling drained, disempowered, lacking in self-worth, and letting the world on the outside run your life.
This is the difference between living by priority and living by lower priority:
- High priority actions build self-worth and accomplishment, it’s where you become accountable, it’s what brings out the master in you.
- Lower priorities actions end up depleting your self-worth and you’ll end up becoming part of the herd, instead of being heard.
Your identity revolves around your highest values, so the most authentic, accountable life involves living by priority.
I delegate everything in my life other than teaching, research, and writing - those are the three things that are the absolute highest on my values that I love. The top one is teaching, so I spend the majority of my day doing that. Delegating everything else allows me to focus primarily on that.
People often say that I get to delegate tasks to others because I have money. My response is that the opposite is actually true: I have money because I delegate lower priority tasks to others. As such, my day is freed up to do things I love to do, that also bring in more income.
I am certain that it pays to delegate properly. However, as I said earlier, if you hire someone who’s not inspired and who therefore needs micromanaging, that's not real delegation.
Instead that involves releasing a task to somebody who's incompetent and who doesn't really want to do it. That's not fair to them. It's not fair to you. It's not fair to the customer. It's not fair to anybody.
Your accountability therefore reflects how congruent you are with what you value most.
I often say that it’s unwise to expect someone to do anything other than what they value most, or you'll likely end up perceiving that you’re betrayed.
Betrayal is not what somebody does TO you but instead what YOU DO to you when you project an expectation on other people to live outside their highest values and in your values.
I learned a long time ago that if you expect anyone to do anything other than try to fulfill what they most value in their life, you're likely to end up being defeated.
As I mentioned earlier, if you expect me to do anything other than teach, research, and write, you're probably going to perceive you’ve been let down.
It’s for this reason that I delegate my lower priority tasks to people who love to do them, who will actually do them without procrastinating, and who will likely do them with greater efficiency and finesse than I would.
Accountable means being able to bring both sides of the equation into account.
When you live congruently with your highest values and start prioritizing your life, you tend to have more balanced objectives; start mitigating risks with strategic planning; begin seeing the vision of what you can do; become more poised, present and objective; get things done; and build incremental momentum towards greater achievement.
You also are more likely to experience true gratitude (the executive center is also known as the gratitude center) and see everything in your life as working FOR you instead of happening TO you.
As such, identifying your highest values and living by priority is key if you would love to awaken your executive center, become accountable, and live a truly inspired and fulfilled life.
To sum up:
- How do you expect to live a meaningful life if you're doing things that are meaningless?
- How do you expect to have an inspired life if you fill your days with low priority tasks?
- How do you expect to be a leader when you're spending your time being a follower?
- How do you expect to awaken your executive function and have governance over your life if you're not living by priority?
- I do believe that accountability and self-mastery comes down to how much intrinsic self-discipline you have.
- It is wise to identify and live congruently with your highest values if you would love to have a higher level of self-discipline.
- You tend to only be truly accountable to what's most important to you in life – your highest values.
- When you do something that’s high on your values, the blood, glucose, and oxygen go into the most advanced part of your forebrain, the executive center.
- This part of the brain is involved in inspired vision, strategic planning, executing those plans, and self-governance. So, you're automatically more accountable when you're setting goals and objectives that are truly aligned with what you value most in life.
- As such, you’re most reliable, disciplined, focused and truly accountable when it comes to the things you value most.
- It’s unwise to expect someone to do anything other than what they value most, or you'll likely perceive yourself being betrayed.
- Betrayal is not what somebody does TO you but instead what YOU DO to you when you project an expectation on other people to live outside their values and in your values.
In closing, if you would love to make a greater difference, be authentic, and be inspired by your life, it is wise to identify your highest values, live by priority and learn to delegate lower priority tasks. Doing so allows your executive center in your forebrain to come online instead of your subcortical amygdala so you can be balanced, objective, accountable, resilient, proactive and in command of your day.
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