Episode 23 - Why Accountability Counts

"You are the most important thing in your business because you are the driver to get the things that you want to get done.” - Eleshia Harris

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘accountability’? 

Like many others, you probably think of business accountability. Saying that you’ll do something, then following through and getting it done. Taking responsibility for your actions, behaviour, performance, and decisions when you’re running your business and ensuring your projects and ideas reach their full potential. Pushing yourself forward to achieve your dreams. 

But it can also refer to our personal lives. Making sure we are there when our kids need us, that we get those essential tasks ticked off our lists, finding time for self-care, and all the other responsibilities that we have. 

If we don’t keep ourselves accountable, we won’t keep our heads above water. We won’t be able to care for ourselves, our families, and our businesses to the best of our abilities. 

That’s why, if we want to achieve real, meaningful success, we need to focus on accountability 

But that doesn’t mean that you have to beat yourself up to get it all done. Nor do you need to sacrifice your sanity or in the process. 

You simply need to take your time to reflect, understand, and learn from the mistakes you made in the past. This episode is going to help you do exactly that. 

I’ll be talking about what I do to keep myself accountable and explain exactly what external accountability means. You’ll learn how to live more harmoniously by spending more time looking after yourself while building your business and ensuring that you don’t get burnt out!

So what are you waiting for? Listen to the full episode today! 

If you’re an entrepreneur who’s looking for an accountability partner or a business bestie, feel free to join us at our Autumn Academy here.

Eleshia’s Essentials:

• It’s not about putting labels on people. Instead, it’s about trying to navigate life the best that you can without getting into too many conflicts.
• We have to be aware of not just our actions but the actions of other people and the reactions that we get because of what we've said or what we've done.
• You have to look at your life from a holistic perspective, making sure that you're being accountable to yourself first and then everything else that is important to you.

Other resources mentioned:

• The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
• E-Lifestyle Implementation Autumn Academy
• Episode 22- Systems and Products That I Use to Help My Working Day Flow

Connect with Eleshia:

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook

About the Show:

The Eleshia Show is an exciting new podcast that helps empower female business owners to put their well-being first whilst building their businesses. Tune in every Wednesday as my inspiring guests and I discuss strategies, share stories and experiences and dive into how you can build your business whilst trying to navigate real life. The host, Eleshia Harris is here and ready to share her decades of project management and wellness experience to help you start saying ‘Yes!’ to your business and life.

Show Transcript:

That's what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to ensure that it didn't have to be a lonely journey. The reason why you started to work for yourself is because you were passionate about your dreams and your desires and what you can offer to the world.

Eleshia Harris: Hi, I'm Eleshia Harris and I am your host of The Eleshia Show. I am also the founder of eleshialifestyle.com, and I'm so excited that you're here with me and I am here with you. I'm also really appreciative. Each week, I'll be sharing strategies and stories, and insights to help you enhance your wellbeing and to build your business while still navigating life. Because sometimes we often try and separate the two, and let's face it, if you are not well, you have no business. So let's try and work with these two things combined because we can, to enhance your lifestyle. Again, I'm really excited to have you here. I have wanted to put together a podcast for over two years, and so here I am ready to share. Let's get into this week's episode.

That's what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to ensure that it didn't have to be a lonely journey. The reason why you started to work for yourself is because you were passionate about your dreams and your desires and what you can offer to the world.

Welcome back to The Eleshia Show. Today, we are talking about accountability. And I'm going to talk about it from my perspective, because I know it means different things to different people. So I'm coming to you from, of what I do to keep myself accountable. So I know that I am a natural people pleaser. I like to ensure that other people are looked after. I love to care for people. I definitely get that from my mom. She was a natural people pleaser as well. In fact, she'd done that at the detriment of her own health. She would put everybody first. Actually, I'm just saying that out loud. I'm very much like her because I did that. I made sure everybody else was okay before myself. I've spoken a lot about this in previous episodes of me just really now taking care of myself to ensure that I can then pour into others. Because I've seen what that does to somebody when they pour out to everybody else and then not their own. Wow, I did not know that that emotion was going to come up so quickly in this episode. But it's really important that we get to a place where we're okay with taking care of ourselves. And that's why I want it to come at accountability from a different angle because it always needs to feel good for you to be able to take personal accountability. I'm always going to look at it from a holistic perspective because I have the experience now. I've seen what happens within myself, within people around me that I love and care for from the people that are now not with us, because of the fact that they put everybody in front of their own feelings and their own wellbeing. 

I just want to give you some things to think about. So take what you need from this episode. I just want to continue to have these frank conversations to give you things to think about, but also to give you some takeaways and maybe some other tools that you haven't thought about. For me, I know that I need external accountability because as I just said, I am a people pleaser at heart. So I will always gravitate to helping somebody first. I need to ensure that I have systems in place just to make sure that I am looking after myself as much as I can first. And do I always stick to them? No. I'm not a robot, but I do take accountability for when I don't. And I don't beat myself up about it. I just take the time to reflect and to try and understand why I did that. So I've always known that I needed external accountability. 

When I started to look at how I want it to expand my business but ensure that I was putting myself, my family, and my wellbeing first, then I started to do more research around it. When I was on a self-development program, I came across a book called The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. It really just opens my eyes to different tendencies that are out there. So I would definitely recommend the book. It’s really put people and their actions into perspective. Now, I don't like to put labels on people. But it has really helped me to navigate people in my household and clients that I work with. And for me, that really made working and living with people a lot easier. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's about trying to navigate life the best that you can without getting into too many conflicts. 

So I would definitely recommend reading that book. It definitely helped me look at some things that I needed to put into place to ensure that I was happy within myself, and getting the best out of myself without feeling like I was doing things that were overwhelming me. Making the tasks that I felt that I needed to do toxic or living in a toxic environment. It made me understand people. And I think that's really important. We have to be aware of not just our actions, but the actions of other people and maybe some of the reactions that we get because of what we've said or what we've done. And that's all part of trying to live more harmoniously. Well, from my thought process anyway. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to find ways to ensure that I was coming to my work from a more intentional place as to always feeling like I was on the back foot, or I was overwhelmed or I was procrastinating about doing things. 

So that just sense of knowing that I needed that external accountability really helped, and you may not need it. You may not need it. You may be able to get everything that you need to get done and live a really harmonious life. That may be your way, but I know for a lot of us it isn't. We need a little help, and it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to seek help. And I really want to emphasize that because, in this world that we're living in now, it sometimes feels like there is nowhere to go to ask for help. So that's, again, another reason why I took action. And I really wanted to launch this podcast because I know there's a lot of information that I was storing in my head that I know can help others, and that's my mission. 

From an external accountability perspective, we talked about a lot of the things that I put in place to help my working day flow. And some of those things included my Apple watch, which keeps me accountable to help me track my steps and reminds me to take standup breaks and water breaks and to move around and to find movement in my body when I have been sitting at my desk. And there are accountability tools that I mentioned like my external project management tool that I use or my scheduler that I use. And again, I'm not bound to my schedule but I like to have it there to ensure that everything that I want to get done is getting done. And for me and the way my brain works, I love to be able to look at something and say, yep, I've done that and I've done that and I've done that and that's done. I can go on to the next. 

So the reason why this is so important for me is that I always want to be trying to run different projects at different times, or I want to be spending time with the family. And if I don't really hone into having some accountability to get shit done, to be blunt, then I can be trying to do 20 other things at the same time, because I want to pack in so many things into the time that I have to get stuff done. 

And when I found this out about myself, it just made me relax. I was like, okay, I'm all right now to just know that this is just part of Eleshia. This is just part of the way my brain is. I always want to be doing all of the things, and that's okay. But I need to give myself external accountability to ensure that I get the things that I really want to do done. So as soon as I decided that I was going to spend more time on building my business and looking after myself and just ensuring that I didn't burn out again, then I knew it was time to enlist systems and people to help me to stay accountable. And it worked out so well because one of the main things that I really wanted to do was to pouring to myself, especially after the year that we had in 2020. There were a lot of things that I knew that I needed to work on and I needed help. I was healing. I was healing from a lot of personal traumatic stress. I was healing still from grief. I think that is always going to be with me. I miss my mom every day. There's not a day that doesn't go past that I don't miss her. I just have different coping mechanisms to now be able to go about my day. But it was really important to me to be able to know that I had people around me that understood my journey. 

Last September, I decided that I was going to stop group Barre and Pilates classes for the public, and just really concentrate on working on my own practice. I was still a little bit unsure where I was going to take my teaching. And so, I just wanted to give myself some space. It worked out really well because I had already set that accountability practice from April, because I had started to work out with a group of Pilates teachers. We had been working out a couple of times a week together, and we had really got into the groove of things. 

I will share how that came around in another episode because it's such a lovely story. But I've already set that external accountability because I knew that on a Tuesday and a Thursday that I was going to work out. And that was important to me because, again, I've mentioned before that if I don't have some movement in my body every single day, I am a bitch. And I want to turn up as the graceful queen. Remember, Mairi talks about the graceful queen in a previous episode. I want to turn up that way. So I know that I need to have workout buddies to ensure that I get my workout done, because if I'm left to myself then yes, I'll probably do some movement, but will I be 100% present? No, because I'll be thinking about everything else that I have to do on my list. 

So I would highly recommend that if you know that you want to get more movement into your life and you don't feel motivated to do it yourself, then get yourself a workout buddy or go to a group fitness class or find somebody that you can go walking with. For example, I've got a friend that lives in the US. We track each other's steps because I know that it's going to make me, I've got a little bit of a competitive streak. I know that it's going to make me get my steps in each day, and it's fun. It's not from a judgmental way or anything like that. It's fun because I know that these are the things that I want to get done. That's how I tackle it. I do that from a business perspective as well. 

I've mentioned so many times how lonely it can be being a business owner and just working on your own, on your tasks, and so forth. And that's one of the reasons why I launched the Summer School Implementation Program and soon to be the Autumn Academy Implementation School, because it doesn't have to be lonely. There are so many amazing people building their businesses and their brands that you can get together with to keep you accountable. One of the biggest pieces of feedback from summer school in August was, wow, I didn't even know that I could do this. I didn't know that I could enlist people to help me feel accountable, to cheer me on, to help me stay on track to motivate me. This is such a magical container. And that was really music to my ears because that's what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to ensure that it didn't have to be a lonely journey. 

The reason why you started to work for yourself is that you were passionate about your dreams and your desires and what you can offer to the world. But then sometimes you get so bogged down in the systems and the procedures and the things that you think you should be doing. All of the gurus out there who are telling you to do this and to do that. And then it becomes overwhelming, so what we did is we worked from a place of trust and we used our intuition, and there was no judging. There was no judgment. It was a safe space. And we got so much work completed together. It just felt so good to be able to do that with other women who were really just holding the space for each other and helping just to move some of the goals that they had put in place together. And it was just such a joy and I can't wait to do that all over again in the autumn. 

If you're interested in a program like this, then definitely get your name on the waitlist and yes, come join us. To some people, being part of a group petrifies them. So if this is you, then start small. Maybe find a business bestie, somebody that is doing the same as you, or somebody who is at the same stage of their business as you and team up with them and maybe work with them on a one-on-one basis. And when you're doing that, try and have a mix. Don't just always be thinking about the business. Think about yourself. 

I've just joined a book club because I want to read more books. I mentioned it to my community at the beginning of the year and yes, I've done well. But I want to read more books about movement. Now that I have given myself the gift of really working on my own body, it has really ignited my passion again. I feel like a full-blown movement student again, and I'm really excited now to learn more. I've been teaching movement for over eight years now. But you are never not a student, there's always so much to learn. But now, I have enlisted help from the book club because I know that I won't get to all of those movement books, but when I know that I've got a deadline to read these books, then I'll get it done or listen to them. 

You know me, I've mentioned it before, I've got a child. I need to do things that work best for me so that's sometimes audibles, and I love that. I love the fact that I gave myself that option as well. I've also wanted to learn how to crochet and knit for so long. I am a lefty if you didn't know that already. So it's been so difficult for me just to get my head around that. And I've gone to numerous different teachers who have tried to teach me the right-handed way or the left-handed way, and I just couldn't get it.

And then I decided to take some time to find a teacher that could, and so I went on her first course. And it was so nice because there were five of us and we were all learning together. It was just such a nice great group of ladies, and it was enjoyable. And now, I'm going to go back and watch some of the videos that she sent us, and then I am going to go on her next course. So I try and do this for everything. Not as I said, I keep on saying it, but not just for business. Yes, your business is important but you are important. You are the most important thing in your business because you are the driver to get the things that you want to get done. You get all of the personal things that you want to get achieved. Don't keep on saying, when I have time, when I have time, because again, referring back to last year, no one knew that that was going to happen. So make sure that you are getting as much joy out of your life. And I know some people might have been thinking, oh, this is going to be just about business accountability. And yes, no. No, it is about enjoying your life but finding ways to do that without feeling like you always have to be looking at your to-do lists. Build out some time for yourself.

I'm going to be talking about time blocking. And again, I'm looking at it from a holistic perspective. So that's going to be the next episode. I really hope that this short episode has just really given you something to think about. When I talk about accountability, I'm talking about just taking accountability for your whole life. Looking at your life from a holistic perspective, making sure that you're being accountable to yourself first, and then everything else that is important to you. I really hope that has helped. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Eleshia Show. If you know somebody who needs to hear the conversations that we are having, please share it. Take a screenshot and send it to them. Also, I would really love for you to rate and review the podcast as this really helps, and I'd love to read your comments. Lastly, remember, you need to invest in yourself first because you are important and amazing. Take care. Until next time. Bye-bye.