Do you find yourself blaming others when things don’t go your way?
Do you feel there are circumstances in your life that are beyond your control, and this contributes to a less-than-perfect life?
Are you letting things happen to you instead of taking charge of the way your life unfolds?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then perhaps you could explore how taking one hundred percent responsibility can help you shift your perspective and put you in charge of creating the life you want.
Taking responsibility can be uncomfortable, and understandably so. Blaming others is an easy way out, and often, an appealing one. But when you do this you are also telling yourself that you have no power; that you are at the mercy of circumstances beyond your control. If you believe that everything in your life is someone else’s fault, you also believe that you cannot affect the outcome or the situation in any meaningful way and you allow yourself to be carried along with the current of other people’s actions. You give away your power – your power to rectify the situation, your power to take control of your own life.
Taking responsibility is empowering. It allows you to step into your own strength, as you recognise you can control your responses to the circumstances in your life – and thus create the best possible life for yourself. When we take one hundred percent responsibility for how we feel, what we see, what we hear and how we react, we put ourselves in charge of our own destiny.
This starts by being clear about what we want (or what we don’t want), and by examining the way in which our actions might have contributed to a less than desirable situation. If we ask ourselves what we could do differently, we open up a multitude of possibilities, allowing us to work on a way forward leading to an outcome we do want.
For example, you could be in a relationship with someone – a spouse, a relative or a co-worker – who has acted in a hurtful way. The easiest thing to do is to blame them for their actions and to cast yourself in the role of the victim – the one who has been hurt through no fault of your own. But suppose you ask yourself what you might have done to cause this person to behave this way. When you examine your role and your contribution to the situation, you can take control to do things in a different way and to work towards an outcome you do want.
Here are some ways you can take one hundred percent responsibility in your life
• Notice what is going on within you when you feel the urge to blame other people. What are the emotions that come up? Can you recognise them and name them
• Once you recognize the emotions, ask yourself the following questions:
- How am I contributing to this situation?
- What is it that I am doing that’s causing this response in someone?
- Is there a different way for me to behave to get a different response?
• When you feel that you are not getting what you want from a situation, bring it to the table. Talk to the other person, be it your partner, a family member, your boss, a co-worker. Ask for permission to give feedback and also be open to hearing feedback. Ask for what you want.
• Understand that our emotions create our experiences. When you find that you are not experiencing the emotions you want to feel, pause and ask yourself what you do want to feel instead.
For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at Coach Supervision Victoria, Organisational Development Western Australia, Life Coaching, Coach Mentoring Western Australia, Life Coaching Western Australia