Rhythms of Life: Accountability Dialogue

Podcast Notes:

Whenever I write a vision in this context, I always use a capital V. But I usually capitalize the entire word. This is VISION. This is what your life is worth living for. This is not a small vision. It’s not a small picture. And those are all fine. I’m not to demean any of those, but this is “what is my life worth living for.”

What is your vision? I want you to work on it. Even if it’s 30 seconds a day. What is it that would make my life absolutely worth living? What is the most important thing that I want to accomplish in this lifetime? Again, Mark Twain said it best. He said “the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.”

What is your purpose here? So if you’re living a small life and you’re really, really, really, really content and happy with that, OK, that’s fine.

However, if you’d like to play bigger, everybody that plays bigger will at some point feel incapable. You’ve just got to allow that you feel incapable. I’m not big enough to do that. Oh, well, let’s do it anyway. You just go forward with it.

And so that’s what a vision coach does. Now, the beauty of it is you’re not paying somebody. You’re doing it with each other. And when you’re coaching them, when you’re holding them accountable, that is a very powerful exercise for you. It also reminds you to be accountable.

An Accountability Dialogue. The point of accountability is observation without judgment.

If someone judges us or gives us feedback, our first response, may be it’s gross, may be very subtle. But our first response is generally a little bit of resistance. Sometimes it’s a lot of resistance. However, if it’s truly someone holding us accountable, then the only appropriate response to that is to move our lives forward, and  to say “thank you.” That’s really it. I take it as an act of love that you care enough to actually say something to me. So I’m going to go through the accountability dialogue with you.

Question #1.  Did you make a commitment?

And the purpose of that is to cause alignment. It’s do we have an agreement here? And you’ll find that I see this with parents. I see this with businesses in all walks of life. It’s that initial communication that is often missed. Did you make a commitment? Gosh, I don’t know?

Question #2. Did you keep that commitment?

And the purpose of that is just to tell the truth. If anything starts with other than yes, the answer is no.

And so then you ask what got in the way. So I’m not judging. I’m not making him wrong. I’m inquiring.

Question #3. What got in the way?

Now you’re trying to isolate whatever the block is for them, what got in the way?

Now, the key here. There’s one key word I want you to think about what their sentence has to start with, and there’s one word when you ask them.

Question #4. Could you have kept the commitment?

Question #5. What would have to happen or what would have had to happen? Their answer should always start with the word ‘I.’

Question #6, What are you feeling now?

What are you feeling now, and this is really to create a level of compassion and understanding.

So what’s the lesson? And that question is to empower them. They now get to take on the positive thing that will change the outcome in the next event.

Question #7: What is the lesson?

Question #4. Are you willing to re commit?

And that’s to inspire them to give them a sense of empowerment to do the job. They’re not less than sweeping. They’re not less than whatever the job was.

They now can acknowledge their own empowerment. Are you willing to recommit? And that’s a real question.

Question #5. Is your commitment consistent with your purpose?

Is your commitment consistent with your purpose? Now you all have to get aware of what your purpose is for everything. Up to this point you didn’t. You can just you can do an accountability dialogue about anything – about watching TV, putting gas in the car, washing the dishes doesn’t matter. But when you get down, is your commitment consistent with your purpose? And this is more appropriate for working with your vision partner because they may say no. 

Question #6 Are you committed because it’s important to YOU?

See, because people will commit, because they think it’s important to me, that never works. Well, it can work in a particular way, but not with this. Are you committed because it’s important to you and once again, that’s to create accountability and empowerment. But you should only do it if you’re really committed because it’s important to you.

So I highly, highly recommend that you start working on this accountability dialogue and start working with it so you start getting more familiar. So thank you. And we’ll be back next week with some more and more solid information about things that you can do to move forward.

Be healthy, be happy.

Thank you.

 

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Western Perspective, Integrative and Functional Medicine. 

The Balancing Point health radio talk show about Traditional Chinese Medicine, supplements, nutrition, and more.  Host Dr. John Nieters, acupuncturist and health educator.  http://www.thebalancingpoint.net

Inspired by this podcast to take action in your life? Visit Alameda Acupuncture.