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Take Responsibility to Create Your Life

Have you ever blamed someone or circumstances in any of these situations?

  • You were fired
  • Your partner or you cheated
  • Your partner left you
  • Your friends abandoned you
  • You had an enormous fight with someone
  • You lost money
  • You lost your home
  • You couldn’t pay your bills anymore
  • You caused an accident
  • You were late for your exam or you failed an exam
  • And so on?

In the past, I definitely blamed others and circumstances for some of my failures, but I do not do that anymore. Why not? Because blaming doesn’t help us fix any problem and move on. Blaming is a defense mechanism, in which we point out our finger at other people and things and circumstances. We say,

“It wasn’t me”
“It’s not my fault”
“He/she is guilty”

When we blame others, we subconsciously avoid taking the responsibility – we shift it to those who we blame for what has happened. WE GIVE UP and we only look for excuses. We don’t realize that by doing this we feel helpless, pessimistic and powerless – we accept the role of a victim. And this may further lead to hopelessness, anger and/or depression.

If we don’t take responsibility for what has happened, we lose our power to change, to solve any problem, and to find happiness again. Furthermore, we miss opportunities to grow. On the opposite, eventually we suffer. Look, how can we take an action to solve a problem, if we say, “It’s because of you,” pointing out our finger at someone else? We are not able to search for a solution when we blame others, because this way we subconsciously block our resourcefulness. Remember, both, our failures and successes are our own responsibility, for sure partially.

Let’s look at a few situations.

You were fired. You blame your boss. That’s usually the first reaction, because it’s easy to do so. We naturally don’t want to admit that we were wrong, even if this was the case. What, if you step in the shoes of your boss? What would you then expect from his/her employee, yourself?

You failed an exam. You blame the lack of time, “I didn’t have enough time to study.” Maybe you blame your friends that they took your time. Or, you blame the professor that the exam was much harder than you expected. Or you may blame the sleepless night.

Your spouse left you. You blame him or her. You say that you did everything what you could to save the marriage. However, usually when we say, “I did everything,” believe me, there is the most likely something that we didn’t do. Marriage is like a rowboat with two paddles and two people in it, with one paddle each. Both partners have to work together to have a good marriage.

So, what to do instead? STOP BLAMING anyone and anything.

Forgive those who you have been blaming (I kindly refer you to my article about forgiveness )

  • Look at yourself and identify your role in that specific situation
  • RECOGNIZE YOUR MISTAKES – be objective
  • ACCEPT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, your part
  • Believe in yourself that you can make changes
  • Make a decision to go forward
  • Take massive action
  • Resolve the problem
  • MOVE ON

So, when you are fired, you should look at yourself, be honest, and tell yourself whether it was fair to fire you. Ask yourself, “Did I really perform, either as my boss expected, or in accordance with my job description? “What could I have done better and I didn’t?” “Did I receive some warnings before and I ignored them, and how often did it happen?” “Did I get a chance to do better, but I didn’t take that chance?”

Analyze your answers in order to understand your responsibility for firing you. When you failed an exam, could you have found more time to study? Ask yourself, “Is it fair to blame my friends that they invited me to the party, and I joined them? Could I have said, No?” “Do I have the right to blame the professor, or I simply didn’t expect that difficult part of the exam, and that’s why I didn’t study it at all?” “Did I decide to chat late at night and go to bed late, and that’s why I was so tired the next day?”

Analyze your answers in order to understand your responsibility for failing the exam.
And when your spouse left you, can you admit that you really did everything to save the marriage? You can make a list with the actions you took, everything you did. Afterward, you can make another list with actions that you haven’t done. I’m sure you will discover some of them. Marriage is a beautiful, but yet, pretty complex relationship, with ongoing challenges. They are two people involved and each of them is responsible for his/her own part.

Accept your part, your mistakes and your responsibility.

We all make mistakes. It is human. Admitting that we made a mistake is a strength that enables us to learn from it. Therefore, let’s take ownership of our mistakes. Blaming others and circumstances drains only our energy that we tremendously need to improve ourselves and take action. When we stop blaming others, we open our eyes, and we admit that we are responsible for what has happened, at least partially. Only then we are able to take action.

Last, but not least. Let’s be careful with having a habit of blaming others and circumstances on a regular basis. If we continue doing so, we may become negative people. Let’s be also careful with self-blaming. When we blame ourselves, we usually feel guilt, and then we go into a negative state. I would recommend reflecting on the situation and on our role in it. Let’s truly own our part, recognize our mistakes. Let’s develop self-compassion without judging ourselves. Let’s be kind to ourselves. Only in a positive state, we are resourceful, and only then we are able to look for various ways and options that will lead to resolving our problem and eventually will bring our happiness back.

Let’s get our lives under our control so that we are able to make changes. When we understand it, we focus on what we want to achieve. Past stays in the past. The future is just anticipation. Today is what we have.

Don’t let the past steal your present.

~Cherralea Morgen

Let’s be accountable for our results & Let’s create our own reality!

Sylwia

Sylwia Borowy
Sylwia Borowyhttps://newomancoaching.com/
Sylwia is a Certified Life Coach who handles the whole range of different human problems and situations. She helps her clients rediscover the strengths, passions, and potential, and find a new purpose in life. She helps them boost their self-esteem and self-confidence, and find more joy and positivity in their lives. In her coaching practice, she focuses on the key relationships in the lives of her clients, and she helps them improve those relationships. Why? Because, as human beings, we have the need to belong to communities. Together with her clients, she brainstorms various options and ideas so that her clients can live happily according to their values and beliefs. Her motto is: “Believe in Your Strengths.” She started her career as a Banker after graduating from the Warsaw School of Economics where she earned her master’s degree in Economics. After 16 years working in Risk Management area in Poland and in the Netherlands, she enjoyed ex-pat life in Brazil and Mexico for another 8 years raising her twins, now young adults. After she experienced several challenging transitions in her life, she decided to help others through her coaching services and writing about how to enjoy life.

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10 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Welcomed. You presented yourself with an interesting article. You will find many interesting people in this community from whom you can learn a lot and, I am sure, you will also have the opportunity to transmit wisdom and experience to us.
    The first step to change quickly and succeed in life is to assume our responsibilities, which automatically sets us in line with others by eliminating the root cause of conflicts, the excess of selfishness and the lack of confidence in oneself and in the others! When we take on our emotional responsibility, we are responsible for everything that belongs to us, the property of our feelings, thoughts, actions and consequences. Once we have this awareness, as observers of ourselves, we will discover all those things that are still pending, we can work on it so that we can continue to grow and mature as people. However, this is not an easy task. Often, we will face a series of contradictions, because our egos like to protect. But perhaps this is the beautiful one, the process of self-discovery with its affirmations and contradictions, and then integrating them into oneself.
    We must learn to accept the reality we have built ourselves with our usual thoughts and our actions. To change it, there is a universal remedy: stopping of recriminating or blame others! Remedies always arise from the recognition and acceptance of their own mistakes, because, thanks to the acceptance, we stop to obsessively overthink about the situation, and change comes, because right then we begin to believe in ourselves and in our possibilities. Not recognizing and not accepting our mistakes means we are not ready for change: it means we do not yet believe in ourselves. When one continues to blame others, perpetuates the sense of irresponsibility and imbalance in one’s life and the situation does not change.

    • Aldo,
      Thank you so much for taking your precious time and your broad reply! And sorry for my late response!
      I know that taking our own responsibility is not always easy, yet it is always possible. This is the first step on our path towards our goals, whatever we want to accomplish. When we take our responsibility, we accept, analyze, find solutions/ways, part of and we move on.
      I’m happy to be part of this amazing community.
      Best wishes,
      Sylwia

  2. Welcome to the community, Sylvia, and thank you for the excellent article! I believe it is human nature to take the knee-jerk reaction and blame others for our misdoings. But that doesn’t make it right. Thank you for breaking down this syndrome in such a way that we can take a step back and reassess, honestly.

    • Thank you Sherry for welcoming me to the community! And thank you for your comments on my article. I made those mistakes, I blamed others and circumstances, but I do not do it anymore. I discovered how resourceful I am when I accept my own responsibility for me deeds. Thanks again!

  3. Welcome, Sylwia to the BC360 family. As is my tradition I will wish that you have the same outstanding and touching experience that I did during my tenure. By touching I mean you will meet some of the kindest and open-hearted people you could ever hope to meet. Let me also congratulate you on having your first article published. The blame game as I call it often starts in childhood when one sibling will blame the other sibling for something they did. It is always easier to blame somebody else for your wrongdoings rather than accept the responsibility of owning up to your mistake. Life is difficult sometimes which can cause some people to look for an easy way out of a situation because they can not handle something themselves. Ergo they assign guilt elswhere. Handing out blame is almost a norm in our society today. Our dearly beloved politicians (meant sarcastically) are masters of not taking responsibility for their actions. And so it goes.

    • Thank you Joel for the warm welcome and your valuable comments on my article about blaming/taking responsibility.

      I guess that we all have either made or will make this mistake, blaming others, the easiest and quickest “pseudo solution.” When we go through life, experience numerous situations, then we see that the real and sustainable solution we can find only when we accept our responsibility and take action.

      Thanks again!

  4. Thank you for a meaningful article on the importance of taking full responsibility for our words, deeds, thoughts, feelings, values, and beliefs, Sylwia. There are many important life skills you offer here. I would add how important it is not to take on the responsibility of other people’s behaviors, words, tone of voice, emotional outbursts. This can be a trap too for each person is only responsible for what’s going on in their own boat or aisle (as I like to describe this). Too often people take on the burden of internalizing other people’s shameful words or deeds and this becomes a distraction from looking at the reality of what someone else said that came out of her or his mouth (and not yours) and what someone else did (that you actually did not do).

    Sometimes children can be scapegoated by adults who lack the capacity to take responsibility for their lives, their words or actions. Children do not have all the tools for navigating the impact of being the dumping ground of an adults’ lack of emotional regulation, and cruel deeds. Teasing apart what is an introject, what is someone else’s and what is truly yours can take years. Boundaries become essential.

    Welcome to BizCatalyst360!

    • Thank you Laura for the welcome message, and for the broad extension to my article.

      Yes, we definitely should not take responsibility for other people’s behaviors. It would further disempower us and lower our self-worth. How many times we hear that one provoked the other and that’s why he/she hit the other person. It happens in toxic relationships. We are responsible only for our deeds.

      We should also be a great example for our children that accepting our own responsibility is a sign of maturity; it’s is a strength. Then, we need to take action to solve the problem.

      Thank you again, Laura, for all your great words!

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