Accountability conversations

I met a man who is extremely gifted yet laid back and as though time has stopped. There was nothing to show for all his great talents but his equals and those of talent below him headed great companies. He seemed to love his space in spite of that slow-motion life and less productivity. Give him any space with great topics and he would tell you as much as you wanted to hear yet the only conversation he dreaded was an accountability conversation.

Africa is full of such discouraged yet talented souls. And this is why I opened a Life Lessons with Vanto Project, to create an atmosphere that will give space to people to be that which God has purposed them to be. This space is an opportunity to have accountability conversations that will win back those who have given up their gifts because of the atmospheres which they vowed never to return back to them.

‘I imagine days’; he recalls, ‘where all I had with my dad are accountability conversations that criticized me in everything that I did for that day.’ he said. ‘All I ever wanted was to please him, at times I would take a task he never sent me to do but when I called him to proudly show my work I never made the grade”. This man ended up hating every form of Accountability Conversation.

Another shared about how these conversations at school were extremely uncomfortable and her teacher told her that she will never amount to anything in life. The other shared about accountability conversations in her relationship where she was always accused and suspected of cheating. One would continue about accountability conversations at work where he was never good enough to his boss.

I listened this morning to Ted Talks Lusaka where Tafadzwa Bete Sasa says: Accountability is a love language. She says “imagine a friend who will see that you are going on a slippery slope and she presses a pause and helps you to find out where did things go wrong”. She says there are people who will love you enough to create a space that is non judgmental and a loving atmosphere that says: I believe in you.

We all need Accountability Partners and they are much better than New Years’ Resolutions. In most cases, we strive when we have accountability partners who invest their belief in our ability to rise above, and we feel that we do not want to let them down. Whether it is good grades at school, weight loss, running mate, or working out at the gym – we need accountability partners who will give us space to become that which God sees in us.

Change is hard and grabbing a new habit can be a daunting task however when we work with friends or a group this will increase our consistency. An African Proverb says: When you want to walk fast, you walk alone. When you want to walk far you walk with others. I challenge you this day to find Accountability Partners.

Let us populate Africa with Accountability Coaches, Accountability Partners, and even Keep ourselves accountable. At times we do not have the money to pay Accountability Coaches and at times it is difficult to keep ourselves accountable but we can find Accountability Partners who will be willing to walk the journey with us. In our previous blog, we said it is important To Be and Let Be in the journey of life. Today I say to you, that your destiny is worth finding an accountability partner.

Below are tips from Michael Tabirade in his presentation: How to use accountability to get things done

1. Find an accountability partner with ambition, objectivity, and integrity

2. Your accountability partner should not be too close to you emotionally

3. arrange how and when to meet whether online or face to face, weekly or fortnightly

4. Record your progress/ discussions, objectives, tasks, things done, challenges and lessons learned, status checks such as created; pending, or closed

5. create enough time to speak, don’t wait for sessions, update each other throughout the week

6. use coach like tendencies, deep listening

These are just paraphrased notes above but I hope they are sufficient to get you going. I encourage you to read my blog: You are God’s treasured possession. Remember today you need to be better than yesterday and let this be every day for you. I recommend to you my blog: Don’t just let life happen to you.

Let me know your thoughts.