Accountability

When we speak about accountability it is to take responsibility for one's actions. In my book, Behavior Change...A View From the Inside Out, I talk about four principles of Creating Lasting Change.

Awareness and acceptance are the first steps to creating lasting change,
Understanding what holds habitual behavior in place is key to doing things differently,
Improvement is making new choices and replacing the old patterns with more effective ones,
Reinforcement emphasizes that practice with feedback brings improvement.

Last night, in his address to the US Congress, President Barack Obama said in regard to the economic crisis, "It's only by understanding how we've arrived at this moment will we be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament." This is an excellent example of how a world leader is asking us to help make the changes we need, by being accountable for the situation we find ourselves in. With out this step, we will simply repeat the behavior that got us here.

Passion

Here's a wonderful piece of inspiration from Robert Genn's blog that was sent to me.

Dr. Susan Biali, 37, a medical doctor as encouraged by her parents, has written a book on passion and how she found her true calling. Right now she's negotiating a TV program about the process. Susan says passion means getting at the very core of who you are and what you want to do. Since childhood she had longed to be a dancer. One morning she arrived home exhausted from a particularly stressful night shift in the emergency ward. Desperate, she turned around, slammed the door, flew to Cuba and took up Flamenco.

Susan is now a professional dancer.

The word passion comes from the Latin patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. These days, losing its uncomfortable roots, passion is a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion toward a subject, idea, person or object. Here's how to get it:

Revisit and repossess your core dreams and fantasies.

Consider your dreams to be private, unique and sacred.

Get help from and watch the actions of the already passionate.

Indulge, honour and live in your own imagination.

Don't talk about it, do it.

See your passion manifested into action or production.

William Burke, the great philosopher and definer of emotions and passions, wrote in 1780, "There's a boundary to passions when we act from feelings; but none when we are under the influence of imagination."

When you serve your passions, proficiency gradually takes over and becomes habitual. "Permission" becomes entrenched with even more focus and those giddy feelings of success. It's like love--when you're in it you hardly know where you are, but all is well.

"Figure out what you're passionate about. If you're not passionate about something, go find it. We do not need more unengaged boring people to inhabit this planet." (Ben Heppner)

Esoterica: Reflection, quietude and self-containment build passion like a kettle coming to the boil. Heated, nothing is too much trouble. As excitement really bubbles up, your face becomes flushed and you have an increase in temperature. In a quiet studio, at the altar of your easel, the condition of your armpits is a good indicator. "Be still when you have nothing to say," said D. H. Lawrence, "but when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot."

HankFieger.com/blog

Hi, I'm finally up and running with a new site and a book and blog.

I'm really looking forward to this new creative journey and hope that you will contribute to it as well with your comments, reactions, and questions.

I look forward to furthering the conversation. More to come soon.