Being accountable to myself is much harder than being accountable to someone else. I suspect this is true for most people. We all wish for ideal childhoods with parents who provided for all our emotional needs. And so we look to bosses, spouses and authority figures as substitute parents.
Most of our adult lives are spent trying to find some ideal mommy or daddy to soften the trauma and lack of our childhoods. We remember these issues far too vividly as adults through the perceptions of our inner child. It is a huge challenge to recognize that feelings are not facts but these feelings nevertheless run our lives.
The unfortunate truth is that the only ideal parent that can ever exist for our inner child is ourselves. We must comfort, protect and nurture that part of ourselves that still feels lacking because no one else can give it to us. No one is coming to save us. We are the parent to our inner child.
Which brings me back to my challenge with being accountable to myself. I struggle to care for myself the way I need as I too often perceive myself as not being good enough. If I just worked harder or spent more time preparing or if I just did one more pass on my pitch deck. You get the idea. I’ll push myself right over the edge of success into inaction and self torture.
One way I’ve been able to overcome this need to push myself into a fantasy of accountability is simply by building in public. If I’ve said what I plan to do then I’m no longer just cultivating it inside myself but I’ve let the idea come forth into reality. Once it is outside of my own tortured bubble of personal accountability it can gain momentum.
I am raising money for a venture fund and now that I’ve put that in public it’s not just about me. It’s about the thesis, the LPs, the founders, and the market. And it’s much easier to be accountable to a shared reality with other people than some fantasy version of perfection inside my head. If you’d like to be a part of it and are an accredited investor here is a link to my calendar. If you’d like to read more about the fund I’d be thrilled.