Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Even as I struggled with accountability, I had made a commitment and I had a God appointed support system that wouldn’t make room for me to fall off the wagon. God would have it that I had multiple layers of accountability so I couldn’t even think about mischief.

As I begun the process, I had asked coach to walk with me, I had asked my lil man to be my close watcher and I had shared the plan with my sisters and one in particular stepped up to support. Additionally, I had begun talking about the process I was on right here and this gave another set of people the opportunity to follow. These meant three layers close up and one further out.

As I started the process it was as if I was doing it for the three close layers because I would report daily to coach, the lil man would hear me workout as he was waking up and my sister would ask how it was going. I would go places with lil man or sis and they would watch and ask about what I was putting into my mouth.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

There is a deeper layer of this process I hadn’t seen.

When I began to conquer myself and goals, there was a delighted cheering squad on the side-lines encouraging me. I remember the first weigh in where I had lost just four hundred grams. In my mind, it was nothing much but to the team…it was a different matter. They were excited, the danced, hugged me and celebrated the first sign of success. As I conquered milestone after milestone I had a team of celebrants who gave me energy. Then there was the day we went out for a meal and I was doing something close by and I found lil man and sis made a food choice for me that fit right in with what I eat even as they all had fast food.

All my life I had been the cheering squad for people but would not ask for support in anything. Here was an opportunity to understand what it meant to have people on your team just to be on your team. They are a very personal cheering squad who want nothing other than your success no matter what. This accountability has grown through the months and has influenced my team.

As they have cheered me on and have seen the changes come, they too have been challenged to make decisions and stick to them. I think of my lil man in particular. As I started this process, I begun to make hard decisions and one was to change his school. The school I selected was further from home but still within walking distance. However, the fees were a chunk higher and I didn’t know how we would cover it but I knew it was the thing to do so I moved him all the same.

That first term he did really badly in his opener exams (they do exams that first week of school to assess learning during the holidays) and midterm exams and I couldn’t find a way to motivate him to figure it out until I remembered the journey I was on. Using the skills I had learnt so far, I asked him to set a target score and a revision plan that I could keep him accountable to. Oh he did nothing for a few weeks but another set of exams shifted that for him. He set his goal and told me but never shared his plan. All the same, he hit his goal spot on and that has served as fuel for him to keep setting higher and higher score goals and meeting them each time.

It struck me hard that the process is about so much more than me.

I embraced accountability even deeper when I realised that my honest commitment could and had changed another life just as much as it had changed mine. Growth has a way of inspiring everyone and my growth was doing just that.

Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com