To be accountable is to true ly be successful, but it's more than that. You have to be accountable to that inner voice that tells you to run, quit, move, take action now! or die.

This word has been bandied about as of late, mostly because of its lack. But what is accountability? Lets take a look: liable to be called to account; answerable, meaning, that if you do something youd better be prepared to cowboy up. It also means that you need to be aware of the changes you need to make in your life and make them. Well also take a look at the joy factor in regards to accountability, but before we do so, lets take a look at the challenges of being accountable.

In regards to growth and achievement, one has to know specifically what his or her goals are; therefore, since you know what you have to do each day, week, month, year, you have to be accountable to those goals and achieve them because if you dont you feel guilty. And anyone who is successful very rarely if ever feels guilty because they are constantly about their business. If you are feeling guilty you have merely violated your own rules or your own integrity. So here are the things you need to do to be accountable in regards to setting goals. We'll get to other aspects of accountability shortly. The mundane, please.

1. Know your goals in detail. Be able to write them out: short term, midterm, long-term.

2. Write up a plan. If youre beginning an online business what are you doing every day? Writing an e-book? Articles? Sales Copy?

3. How specifically are you using your time? Are you aware or keeping track of wasted time? Unfocused time?

4. What is the reason behind your goals, short-, mid-, and long-term.

Consider the following, if you aren't accountable you aren't going to be successful in your relationships, job, career, at school, and so on. In order to move forward, accountability is key, essential, primary, and just all around cant be ignored or overlooked in the least.

Now there may be jobs where you can be unaccountable to a degree for some time and get away with it, but as you move forwardand moving forward means taking on more and more responsibilityyou eventually will be accountable or sink.

Many of my students are not accountable and their grades suffer accordingly. They may attempt to cut corners on occasion but by not setting goals of getting assignments read, papers written, journals entries entered they ultimately fail.

If you desire to be successful, meaning reaching a level of satisfaction in your life that is inspiring and enlivening, then you have to practice being accountable in small measures, moving forward, slowly, progressively. Crawl. Walk. Run. Just like parents give their children responsibility by initially asking them to throw out their diaper (moving up to bigger challenges) clean their room (and bigger) get good grades (and bigger) get a job and move out, we must do the same for ourselves--progressively give ourselves responsibility challenges.

And you can certainly feel it when you are not being accountable or accountable enough. What does that mean? Well, if you take a job and love it for a while but find that it no longer satisfies, you have to be accountable to the message coming from within you to take action. I have certainly been there, and if I wasnt accountable to my inner voice, the creative / intuitive voice, I would be dead by now. Well, maybe living but certainly a zombieliving on the outside, dead on the inside. Let me give you a brief story to illustrate.

When I lived in Connecticut, I was working in the computer field but was very unfulfilled. And this being unfulfilled" manifested itself in my body. I felt sick or more so that I would be sick. I had some minor symptoms, tingling feelings in my hands and lower legs, and began going to doctors. I went to specialist after specialist but they all told me I was fine. I was then advised by my sister to seek out counseling. I went to one who in two meetings did more for me than one-hundred doctors. She told me some things about my father / son relationship that were truly enlightening and life changing. However, this was just the beginning. At this point, the only thing I knew was that I was miserable and something had to change. I will briefly tell you what transpired.

Around the time of this transformation," I had begun writing. I went back to what I loved doing. I then wrote a novel over a period of two years that I threw away. It simply didnt work. About this time was when I began to believe I was sick. Come to find out years later, this event was simply a message to me from whatever source (internal / externalyou choose) to make a move.

And part of that move consisted of going to Boston. The need for this change manifested itself in depression and insomnia. I actually interviewed for a job in Boston without sleep for two days and was so sick with such a headache I thought Id throw up all over the MIS manager interviewing me. Amazingly enough, I got the job. How? I dont know. External help, Im guessing. Divine, maybe. I was under-qualified and overpaid. I got the job with less than the minimum requirement of experience and on top of that they went over the listed salary range. But I made the move from Connecticut to Boston, continuing along the path I knew I had to follow.

I was so depressed at this point that being alone and writing was out of the question, so I took my writing to the stage. I began to do standup comedy. Not too unusual that a severely depressed person was doing comedy. In my four-plus years of working in the field, I met a lot of depressed and odd people. One of them was Dane Cook. Before and after performing, he was the quietest guy youd ever meet. Often times Id see him sitting by himself. Im sure thing's changed for him since. We all progress and grow if we are accountable to what we already know we need to do.

To make a long story short, I performed in Boston for four years, moved to LA, did some comedy and extra work but decided that writing was where I wanted to be, went back to school and taught for over eight years while writing another book, poetry, essays and so on. As I write this, I am being told what I need to do next to bring my talent to bear, to promote my core genius, to come to the aid of as many people as I possibly can.

I get revelation day by day, move by move, event by event. But only if we are accountable to what we need to do in our lives to improve it, and ultimately touch the lives of others, will we ever be able to find happiness. And only if we move and are accountable to that need to move will we grow and, more importantly, we will continue to hear the message coming from within us.