response-ability

Accountability breeds response-ability. Commitment and involvement produce change. In training executives, we use a step-by-step, natural, progressive, sequential approach to change. In fact, we encourage executives to set goals and make commitments up front; teach and apply the material regularly; and report their progress to each other. 

If you want to overcome the pull of the past - those powerful restraining forces of habit, custom, and culture - to bring about desired change, count the costs and rally the necessary resources. In the space program, we see that tremendous thrust is needed to clear the powerful pull of the earth's gravity. So it is with breaking old habits.

Breaking deeply embedded habits - such as procrastinating, criticizing, overeating, or oversleeping - involves more than a little wishing and willpower. Often our own resolve is not enough. We need reinforcing relationships - people and programs that hold us accountable and responsible. 

Remember: Response-ability is the ability to choose our response to any circumstance or condition. When we are response-able, our commitment becomes more powerful than our moods or circumstances, and we keep the promises and resolutions we make. 

Stephen R. Covey

Principle-Centered Leadership. 2009/ RosettaBooks.