Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! Evan Signature
Evan Carmichael Top Header
Share for a Cause









Accountability for your Career

Written by: Alvah Parker

Article Overview: Being accountable to someone else is constraining.  You can't just do anything you want. You must do it the manager's way and in the manager's time frame. After you’ve left a job being accountable to only yourself does feel freeing.  But eventually reality sets in and you will need to figure out how to motivate yourself to take some steps forward.

Free Download - How To Be Happy at Work? Acknowledge Yourself By Alvah Parker
Name: Email:

Accountability for your Career



When you leave a job after having had a demanding manager, you may feel like you just took off a tight pair of shoes. What a relief!
Even if you have been laid off and you are not sure what your next step is there can be a feeling of freedom.

Being accountable to someone else is constraining. You can't just do anything you want. You must do it the manager's way and in the manager's time frame. Sometimes you are in synch with him or her but sometimes not. Often the pressure of producing it fast is unrealistic and stressful. Hence the relief!

That is not to say that there is no anger, disappointment and fear that comes with being laid off. It is natural to feel this too. People often need time to recover after the trauma of being laid off because they do feel so upset and discouraged. They must learn to deal with those emotions and that can take some time.

On the other hand finding a new job takes time too and so the faster you can adjust to your new situation and put your anger and fear aside the better off you will be.

Initially being accountable to only yourself does feel freeing. But eventually reality sets in and you will need to figure out how to motivate yourself to take some steps forward.

How do you do it?
The first step is to set some goals. What is it you really want to do? Since you probably have fear around being out of work for a length of time as well as a desire to find a better job, a good place to start is to set some goals for making contacts and meeting people that can help you to find that better job.

While taking action and developing relationships will make you feel better, it still may be difficult to do. Days with no agenda may be welcome in the beginning. There is no boss to complain if you don't reach out to your network in a reasonable amount of time and it is so easy to forgive yourself for not moving. ("I'm still upset." "I need a rest." "I can wait until Monday.")

When you find you are procrastinating and finding a million other things to do instead of working on your goals, one way to move forward is to enlist the aid of a colleague or friend. Ask that person to become your accountability partner so that you can move forward. Share your goals and tell them your time line.

Making a commitment to that person and to yourself is a public promise to get moving. Your friend is acting as your manager. (There is a reason for managers!)

I've been talking about people out of work up to now but this is equally important if you are working long hours in a job. Whether you are love your work or are miserable in the position, I recommend that everyone work on his or her career a few hours a week.

Here again an accountability partner can be invaluable.Having your boss do this is not a good idea. Managers have agendas (They usually want you to stay where you are.)and their plans may or may not align with yours. Instead choose someone else with whom you are comfortable to help you and make this career work time a priority.

Where do you find an accountability partner? Ideally you'll know someone who also needs an accountability partner so you can help each other. If you don't know anyone like that, then a friend with whom you have shared your career frustration and/or highlights would work.

Finally of course people hire coaches to work with them for this purpose. Accountability coaches can help you to set realistic goals and then make you accountable for attaining them.

Coaches are trained to help clients to overcome the obstacles. They are unbiased partners who hold your vision of your next career move. So in addition to having an accountability partner who supports you and your goals you also have someone skilled in working with clients who want a partner who sees the vision andhears the obstacles to success. The coach will guide you through the challenges toward the dream.

Take Action
1. What are your current career goals? Write them down. Is there a time and date you plan to get them done? Would an accountability partner be helpful?

2. Make a list of possible accountability partners? (This could be helpful even if you don't want to have one right now. You might listen for opportunities to help the people on your list with their goals so that when you need them they will be available to do the same for you.)



Related Articles
  Accountability Partnerships Series Conclusion
  Values
  A culture of accountability is the key to business and organisational success
  Setting up An Accountability Partnership
  The Value of an Accountability Coach

Home > Business-Coach > Alvah Parker > Accountability for your Career
Article Tags: accountability, boss, coach, commitment, job, manager, motivate, reality sets

About the Author: Alvah Parker
RSS for Alvah's articles - Visit Alvah's website

Alvah Parker is a Practice Advisor (The Attorneys’ Coach) and a Career Changers’ Coach as well as publisher of "Parker’s Points", an email tip list and "Road to Success", an ezine. Subscribe now to these free monthly publications at her website http://www.asparker.com/samples.html and receive a free values assessment. Work becomes more meaningful and enjoyable when you work from your values. Alvah Parker began her career as a high school chemistry teacher. She later transitioned to a sales career at AT&T. As a Sales Professional at AT&T for 15 years she was elected to the prestigious Counsel of Leaders for the top 3% of the sales force. After leaving AT&T she transitioned into a coaching career.  Alvah is a senior coach for Boxwood Technology where she coaches association members on career issues and also  a SCORE Business Counselor where she advises and counsels small business owners. Parker’s Value Program© enables her clients to find their own way to work that is more fulfilling and profitable. Her clients are attorneys, entrepreneurs, managers and people in transition who want to find work that is in line with their own values. Alvah is found on the web at http://www.asparker.com. She may also be reached at 781-598-0388.

Click here to visit Alvah's website
Dashed Line

More from Alvah Parker
Making Conversation
Asking For Marketing and Networking Help
Self Assessment The Key to a Successful Job Search
Can You Be Yourself At Work
Creating Your Vision


Related Forum Posts
Re: Require Info on CAD Fed/Prov Grants for Restaurant Start-up Re: Require Info on CAD Fed/Prov Grants for Restaurant Start-up - I know the Ontario government is starting a "Second Career" campaign, full of internship opportunities for new chefs and catering staff. It may be worth your while to research the possibilities with that. It may work itself out to be cheap labor in the form of a grant. Good luck regardless!
Book: Comeback Moms Book: Comeback Moms - Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years Monica Samuels and J. C. Conklin 2006 Jacket: Millions of educated, professional women are quitting their jobs to stay home and raise their children. That would never be you, right? You worked hard for your degree and even harder to get to this point in your career. Quitting now, even for a few years, would kill your career, right? That's what Monica Samuels thought when she found out she was pregnant... Over 60 percent of professional women who leave work to raise children want to get back into the workforce someday. If you even think you might want to go back to work, be it in one year or twenty, you need to lay the groundwork now for a successful reentry or your options will be limited. 1. Quitting: When is the best time to cut the cord 2. Feathering the nest: How to financially prepare before you quit 3. Departure strategies: leaving the office 4. Money and Power: Constructing a new life on the home front 5. Backlash: handling family, friends and angry strangers 6. One foot in, one foot out: How can they miss you if you don't really go away? 7. Part time: It ain't perfect, but it's doable 8. Going back: the when and how of returning to work full time 9. Career counseling: When you need a change 10. Entrepreneurs: True Stories Resources Index
Success Strategies Success Strategies - How to get the results you want now? Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are: The Power of Choice Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this. The Power of Focus The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives. The Power of Commitment This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community. My Success Acronyn in Success Breakthroughs(c) is: S pecific & self-directed U nlimited opportunities & possibilities C reate powerful outcomes C onsistent measureable results E xperience pwoerful transformation S olution and action-oriented S uccessful habits and outcomes Break Through to Powerful LIfestyle & Performance Choices Moira
Books for Women Entrepreneurs Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.



Featured Article


Bottom Footer
Share for a Cause












Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Popular Articles

Google Panda and Your Search Engine Rankings

Making the Most of Your Trade Show Experience

4 Steps To Hypnotize Your Business Prospects

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.