How to Keep Yourself Accountable for ChangeHow to Keep Yourself Accountable for Change
Thrive with Rachael and Dr. Lou
How do you talk to yourself to hold yourself accountable? Rachael and Dr. Lou share some of their recent experiences with self-accountability and provide some useful insights to make positive changes to your daily routine!
12:55•19 May 2021
Keeping Yourself Accountable Without Beating Yourself Up
Episode Overview
- Use both social support and how you feel after positive actions to keep yourself accountable.
- Allow flexibility in routines so smaller efforts still count, rather than giving up when things aren’t perfect.
- Notice whether you’re holding yourself accountable or just making excuses by looking at the actual outcomes.
- Question harsh self-talk by asking if it’s helping, and replace it with more encouraging, goal-focused messages.
- Treat setbacks as pauses rather than failures and restart as soon as possible instead of postponing change to tomorrow.
“Is what I'm doing helping? It doesn't matter if it's true or not.”
What drives someone to seek a life without staying stuck in old habits? This chat between Rachael and Dr. Lou zooms in on a surprisingly powerful tool: how you talk to yourself when you're trying to change. The episode circles around morning routines and gym habits, but the ideas stretch far wider – to mental health, addiction recovery, work, study, and even everyday choices like texting while driving. Dr.
Lou shares how returning to the gym felt energising and mentally strengthening, especially with friends waiting: "Not only did I have the friends to help keep me accountable, but the feeling returned pretty quickly." That sense of reinforcement becomes a key theme. Rachael talks about shifting from an all-or-nothing mindset to a more flexible one – swapping the old belief that a workout had to be 30–60 minutes of intense sweat for shorter, realistic sessions that still count.
Seeing a calendar filled with small, consistent efforts helps her feel successful before the day even starts, whether it’s a 15-minute movement session or a bit of meditation. They also tackle the inner critic head-on. When that voice says, "you failed" or "you’re lazy", Dr. Lou suggests asking a simple question: "Is what I’m doing helping?" – and notes that the answer is usually no.
Instead of labelling themselves as slackers, they focus on what they actually want next, and how to restart today rather than postponing change to tomorrow. Throughout, they highlight how easy it is to pour energy into excuses, rationalisations and self-judgement, and how much more useful it is to rewrite the script in your head, like redoing a scene: kinder, more honest, and focused on the outcome you truly want.
If you’re working on sobriety, mental health, or just trying to build better habits, this conversation gently asks: how could changing your self-talk change your day?
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