The road to burnout is paved with accountability

The road to burnout is paved with accountability.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about certain types of accountability messaging I see on social platforms. It’s this narrative of when you take radical accountability for your outcomes, your actions and integrity fall in line, you achieve your goals, and you become the best version of yourself in life.

There’s just something that rankles me about this kind of message, even as a woman who is “radically accountable” to a fault. I do the things I say I will do. I accomplish my goals. And although I’ve enjoyed reaping the benefits of those choices, that same mindset has trapped me many times in overwhelm, burnout and loneliness.

I once coached a talented and successful CTO. He was an accomplished musician, and he shared his belief that his performance ability was directly related to how difficult his instructors were on him. The more they badgered and subjugated him, the harder he worked, and the better musician he became. I challenged his belief, because there is great data that proves that shame-based instruction does not cultivate better outcomes. Years later, I realized that I held those same beliefs. I didn’t want to be the one out front coming up with excuses for why I couldn’t keep up. I wanted to prove that I was capable of withstanding the heat in the kitchen.

So I developed an adaptation and a pattern that stuck: I learned not to give myself any tap outs, and not to shy away from hard situations. And in addition to developing a high tolerance for enduring bad leaders, environments and relationships, I developed health issues, difficulty trusting others, learned to turn away from my own internal intuition, and eventually, had two TIA's at the age of 45.

So my message is this: yes, be accountable, and yes you need to work hard to get what you want out of life. But you can do it while giving yourself moments of rest when you need it. You can offer yourself some understanding, knowing that not all reasons equal “excuses,” and you don’t need to explain your reasons until someone else understands them. You know whether you can or cannot do something, and that is enough. Sometimes circumstances DO impact your progress. Sometimes you need to give yourself permission to let one of the plates fall and shatter.

Pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion is not a badge of honor for which you will get more gold stars than someone else. What it will do is make you a harsher judge of others when what they really need from you is some grace.

If we can allow ourselves to be more focused on self-compassion over naming and shaming accountability adherence, we could help support each other through our trials as humans, instead of trying to impress each other with our grit.