I sat in the bleachers this afternoon watching my daughter run the court, her shoes squeaking against the polished wood as she pivoted and drove toward the basket. The coach barked instructions from the sideline, sharp and clear, and she responded without hesitation. She was locked in, focused, accountable to someone who was watching every move, every decision, every moment of effort or hesitation. I marveled at her dedication, but more than that, I marveled at the structure around her. She had a coaching staff. She had teammates. She had a schedule pinned to the refrigerator and a uniform that had to be clean by game day. She had people holding her accountable, and because of that, she showed up.
When I was younger, I had that too. Teachers checked my homework. Coaches timed my runs. Bosses reviewed my work. There was always someone standing at the finish line with a clipboard, someone who would notice if I slacked off or skipped a step. The accountability was built into the system. I did not have to create it. I just had to show up and do the work, and someone would tell me if I was on track or falling behind.
But as I got older, something strange happened. The work became more important, but the people holding me accountable started to disappear. I moved into senior positions where there was no one above me to report to. I started working on projects that mattered deeply to me, but only to me. There was no coach on the sideline, no teacher collecting assignments, no boss waiting for a status update. The stakes were higher, but the structure was gone. I was on my own.
That is when I realized that accountability does not just vanish because you get older or more experienced. It has to be replaced. If you do not build it yourself, you will drift. You will tell yourself that you are still committed, still working hard, still on track. But without something concrete to measure against, those words become hollow. You can lie to yourself for a long time when no one else is watching.
So I started creating artificial accountability. I tried a lot of things. I told friends about my goals, hoping that would keep me honest. I set deadlines on my calendar. I wrote down my intentions in a journal. Some of those things helped, but none of them stuck the way I needed them to. Then I stumbled onto something that worked. The streak.
A streak is brutally simple. You do the thing every day, and you mark it down. You miss a day, and the streak breaks. There is no negotiation, no gray area, no room for excuses. The number is either there or it is not. It is honest in a way that almost nothing else is. You cannot spin it. You cannot reframe it. You cannot tell yourself a story about how you are still making progress even though you skipped three days this week. The streak does not care about your story. It only cares about whether you showed up.
What makes the streak powerful is its visibility. I can see it. Other people can see it. It is right there in front of me, a simple number that tells the truth about whether I kept my word. When I wake up in the morning and think about skipping my run or putting off my writing, I do not have to wrestle with my own rationalizations. I just look at the streak. I see the number. I know what happens if I break it. That is enough.
The streak does not replace the internal commitment. It does not make the work easier or the resistance go away. But it creates a structure where none existed before. It gives me something to report to, even when I am the only one watching. It turns the abstract idea of accountability into something concrete, something I can measure, something I cannot ignore.
I am still watching my daughter on the court. The coach is still yelling. She is still running. She has her structure. I have mine. The difference is that I had to build it myself. But once I did, it worked. The streak holds me accountable when no one else will. It keeps me honest. It keeps me moving. And that is what I need.
