Allowing Personal Responsibility to Lead You to Success
By David B. Bohl | April 7, 2008 | 11 Responses
It is so easy to blame our shortcomings or failures on others. Society today has a tendency to accuse our neighbors, genetics, parents, social status, upbringing, or education as the cause for our lack of success. Taking personal responsibility is viewed as a burden, placing limitations on us.
The truth of the matter, though, is that taking personal responsibility is liberating. It gives us the freedom to use our imaginations, to create our own lives, and fulfill our own destinies. There are several things you can do to determine whether you are accepting personal responsibility in your own life, and whether you are living up to your potential.
1. Take Inventory
Scrutinize your life and your reactions to your individual circumstances. Do you find yourself blaming your personal situation on your friends, co-workers, or your boss? If you do, you are probably failing to accept personal responsibility in your life.
Where you are today is a culmination of all of the choices you have made and the actions you have taken up to this point. Where you will be next year, or even ten years from now, will be the result of the decisions you make and the actions you take from this point on.
Examine your attitudes in comparison with your station in life and determine whether you are living a life of acceptance of a life of avoidance when it comes to accepting responsibility.
2. Admit Your Faults
Once you have taken your personal inventory you should be able to discover where your shortcomings are. Look at circumstances in your life that you are not happy with, and reflect upon the decisions you made that led you there. Perhaps you are heavily in debt and cannot see any escape from it in the near future. Look at your spending habits that led you into debt. Did you purchase a new car, or go on an expensive vacation that you could not really afford? Do you buy new clothes all the time or go out to expensive dinners? Do you gamble frequently? You need to answer these questions honestly so you know where your weaknesses lie.
You will not be able to make any progress towards achieving your goals until you can be honest about your mistakes. As long as you can admit your errors and learn from them, you can reach your goals.
3. Change Your Attitude
Blaming others for your lot in life not only prevents you from learning and growing, but it places you squarely in the role of victim. You place control over your own success and your own happiness in the hands of others. If others are to blame for your lack of success or your need for fulfillment, then you will never be able to achieve such goals on your own.
Accepting personal responsibility places you in a position of empowerment. Once you take responsibility for your decisions and your actions, you regain control over the direction of your life. You decide what to do, how to do it, and why. You have the ability to engage your creativity, the freedom to explore, and the power to change. If you have learned from your past mistakes, you will have the added benefit of wisdom. Look at accepting responsibility as a blessing, not as a burden, and it will free you from your constraints.
It takes courage to admit we are not perfect. It takes even more courage to admit when we are wrong. With responsibility, though, comes a tremendous amount of knowledge. Mistakes are a learning opportunity, but without the moral fiber to accept responsibility for those mistakes, any chance of gaining wisdom is lost.
Go through your life and review where you are today in comparison with where you want to be. Ask yourself why you have not yet reached your goals, and take responsibility for the decisions that led you astray. Then determine where you want to go from here, and make a plan to get there. Use your new-found wisdom to guide you down the right road, and commit to making the right decisions to get there. Keep your head up, your attitude bright, and your heart open to the possibilities of the world, rather than blaming it for your problems.
Thanks to Life Insurance Lowdown for including this post in the Carnival of Life, Happiness, and Meaning, to Energies of Creation for featuring this post in the Carnival of Creative Growth, to Credit Card Lowdown for inclusion in the carnival of Money, Growth, and Happiness, to Sales Management 2.o for including this post in the Carnival of Sales & Management Success, to Tip Diva for featuring this in the Carnival of Tips, and to ImprovedLife.ca for inclusion in the Carnival of Improving Life.
Copyright 2008 David Bohl and SlowDownFast.com. All rights reserved.
About the Author:
Husband, father, friend, Life Coach and Lifestyle Designer David B. Bohl is the creator of Slow Down FAST at www.slowdownfast.com.
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Categories: Slow Down Fast, Shift, Life Coaching, Life Coach, Success Strategies, Goals, Happiness, Fulfillment
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11 Responses to “Allowing Personal Responsibility to Lead You to Success”
Comments
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April 7th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
David, this is a subject I feel so passionately about!!! Blaming is one of the 15 most common thinking errors that people engage in. I beleive it was the most common one for me for most of my life. Realizing I had a choice to make my life go in the direction I wanted (and not blame) was one of the hardest things I’ve gone through, but one of the most liberating!!! It feels so good to have a choice. Many people never accept responsibility even when they know they have a choice because they are afraid to. If they can push past the fear the sky really is the limit.
Now, let me go think about ways to improve…
April 7th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Jennifer,
Thanks, again, for visiting and sharing with us!
Accepting responsibility for our parts is the key, no doubt, and frees us of all those resentments we build over the years of blaming others.
David
April 7th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
When an employer or superior hears on our part the desire to start accepting responsibility more and more for our actions it may seem incredulous to him/her based on our past performance. How does one progess in responsbility positively when a shadow of doubt is cast by the employer/superior?
April 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Joseph,
Thanks for your observation and question.
My gut check tells me that it feels good to do the right thing,, even if nobody is looking (or noticing). It simply takes time to earn trust and respect. Before you know it, by acting responsibly, you will be known as a person of integrity. Don’t tell people what you’re going to do. Don’t slowly work your way into a new mind frame. Simply do it.
David
April 8th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
That’s exactly what I was going to say David. If you’ve been irresponsible, it will take time for people to believe in you, but with consistency it will happen. And like David said you don’t have to announce it. Actions speak lounder than words.
David, I think you will like my new post. I would love to have your input and suggestions. Thank you so much for your support.
It is titled:
Ingredients for Inner Peace - How to Get Your Priorities in Order
Jennifer
April 12th, 2008 at 5:13 am
[…] B. Bohl presents Allowing Personal Responsibility to Lead You to Success posted at Slow Down Fast Today!. It is so easy to blame our shortcomings or failures on others. […]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
[…] B. Bohl presents Allowing Personal Responsibility to Lead You to Success, saying, “It is so easy to blame our shortcomings or failures on others. Society today has a […]
April 13th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Carnival of Sales & Management Success - April 12, 2008…
Welcome to the April 12, 2008 edition of Carnival of Sales & Management Success. This week we had 42 submissions that I cut down to the best 17. There is some great stuff here on goal setting this week, and like every week the rest are an eclectic coll…
April 13th, 2008 at 5:01 am
[…] B. Bohl presents Allowing Personal Responsibility to Lead You to Success posted at Slow Down Fast Today!. Taking personal responsibility is viewed as a burden, placing […]
April 13th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
[…] B. Bohl presents (1) Allowing Personal Responsibility to Lead You to Success, saying, “It is so easy to blame our shortcomings or failures on others. Society today has a […]
June 25th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
David, I agree that changing your attitude and allowing personal responsibility will lead you to success. You have to have this mentality of creating your own life, and fulfilling your own destiny but responsibility has to be in there too. Check out a great blog posting on the power of responsibility from Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR. It goes into bringing yourself to a level of empowerment that cannot be reached in any other way. If you keep going on this note, in time you will reach the level you want to be at.