Now there are hundreds of different theories about how to succeed, be more effective, happy. Different authors deduce peculiar laws, rules, axioms of what is necessary or unnecessary to do. To understand all this diversity is quite difficult, especially because there is no evidence that one or another theory will work specifically for me.
But responsibility is what everyone agrees on. And first of all, it is 100% responsible for your life, for all the events that have happened, are happening and will continue to happen in our life. Without assuming the responsibility of unconditional responsibility for your fate, it is impossible to take control of your life, but you have to go with the flow and constantly find yourself where the flow will bring, and not where we need it.
The burden of 100% responsibility.
So what does it mean to take this very responsibility? The most important thing is to accept that everything that happens to us depends only on us. It so happened that most people like to blame for the blunders and mistakes in their lives all around, but not themselves. All are guilty, government, neighbors, parents, colleagues. Everything around is bought and predetermined, talents and vocations are heard from above, and fate is predetermined and nothing can be changed. This is exactly what people think who have not achieved anything in life, and while they think so, they will not achieve anything.
Under the same conditions, some succeed, others blame everyone around for their failures. We are responsible for everything in our life, both good and bad. It means to abandon the excuses of ourselves and our actions, which brought failure, to abandon the role of the victim, that we love to take on from time to time. In all that we have not done and could not in our life, it is only we ourselves who is to blame, but all that we have achieved - we also achieved it ourselves.
This does not sound very difficult at first glance, but each of us, from time to time, avoids 100% responsibility. Let's look at 5 basic strategies for avoiding responsibility.
Blame - a national tradition.
Absolutely all people are inclined to do this, but in our countries of the former USSR this is especially pronounced. And it is not surprising, because for decades we have been inculcated with the thought of care from the state. People are used to the fact that the state will give work, housing, and will provide a low but stable standard of living. And even though more than two decades have passed, the thought that the state, the government owe us something is all the same, and if they do not give it, then they are to blame for it.
Unfortunately, it is precisely the position that someone owes us something is one of the root causes of the propensity to blame. And such people expect everyone to do everything for them, invite them to high-paying jobs, provide housing, create comfortable living conditions. They rarely achieve anything in life, because most of it passes in the expectation that something will happen and there is no point in doing something myself.
It happens differently when we blaming others for our failures. We do not expect anything from others, we act, but having received a negative result, we begin to look for the guilty. And usually it is not us, but someone else (we shift the responsibility to another person) or the “stars so formed” (we take the responsibility off of ourselves, as if nothing depended on us).
As long as we blame, we are not looking for the reason in ourselves, for our actions, we will not learn the lesson from failure, we are not aware of our mistakes, and therefore we will not change anything. Next time we will do the same and accordingly we will get the same result. Having taken 100% responsibility for ourselves, having ceased to blame, we will look for reasons in ourselves, we will definitely find them, draw conclusions, change our actions, approaches and perhaps this is what will allow us to achieve success.
To justify - the fate of the weak and insecure people.
When we begin to make excuses for our actions or the results of our actions or, more often, it is simply for our way of thinking, our beliefs, this is how we express our uncertainty about the correctness of what we are doing or have done or what we believe in. But what does this have to do with accountability?
The fact is that we are starting to justify in response to accusations, real or imaginary, of other people or even anticipating such accusations, in advance. But the essence of the fact that the other person accuses us of something is his reaction, feedback to some of our actions or expressed thoughts. And our task is to derive certain benefits from this, to receive this feedback. To accept or not accept the justice of the charges, this is the second case and it’s only for us to decide, but starting to justify, we lose the opportunity to get the information we need.
Taking the same 100% responsibility for yourselfIt makes no sense for us to make excuses. All our actions or our beliefs depend on ourselves, we are responsible for all results. There is no point in justifying our actions with anything other than our will, our desire or our decision. And to justify it for this means not to recognize your right to them, that is, to sign on your own worthlessness.
Defending is a way to aggressively justify oneself.
Defending really has the same roots as making excuses. Only in this case, instead of justifying ourselves, do we begin to attack and blame in reply those who accuse us. But the result will be the same, we will miss the feedback that we were trying to somehow convey to us, we will not draw any conclusions, respectively, we will not have the opportunity to improve something in ourselves.
In order to make the same clear, I note very often that the accusations addressed to us do not carry any necessary or useful information, and in the majority of cases they are also the defensive reaction of others to our accusations (that is, they begin to defend themselves). But only by taking responsibility for ourselves, can we break this vicious circle and, perhaps, endure something useful for us. Removing ourselves from the responsibility of starting to defend ourselves, we always only aggravate the situation.
Complaining is a direct sign that we do not control our lives.
Very often it is the desire to complain about your life, is the root cause of the fact that we begin to first blame someone for this, then we begin to justify, and then we begin to defend ourselves, starting again to blame someone else. All of this is a strategy of avoiding responsibility for the results that we have in our lives.
If you think about it, if you take responsibility for everything in your life about yourself, then you can only complain again about yourself. We ourselves got up late, we were late for work, we did something in a hurry because of this and we made a mistake, we began to make excuses for this mistake, blaming someone or something. And we ourselves have convinced ourselves that we do not control the results we get, and nothing depends on us. And we ourselves decided that we will not do anything to change the situation in the future, and accordingly we will have exactly what we have now. And this is at best, because often making the same mistakes, we only worsen the situation.
Being ashamed is a peculiar way of avoiding responsibility.
Hesitate to stand a little apart from other strategies of avoiding responsibility, but at the same time is such a dangerous and harmful habit that prevents us from developing and achieving more in our lives.
Being ashamed, we justify ourselves in our indecision, in that we will not perform an action, and therefore do not achieve certain results. Again, we pass by opportunities, remove responsibility for our lives from ourselves, shifting it at all is not clear on what. Resigned to their own fears, phobias, justifying their actions by their own indecision.
What else is interesting, embarrassed, we free ourselves from the need to deal with our own fears, assuring ourselves that there is no need to change something and allow ourselves to do nothing.
100% responsibility and not a percentage less.
It is possible to make a decision, to undertake not to avoid responsibility for your life at any time. It will immediately change a lot, and most importantly it will change the attitude of other people. The fact is that the responsible people hate the complainant, those who deal with useless accusations and hate those who justify their failures. By becoming responsible, we will attract the same people, which will allow us to get even greater results and become even more successful.
You can accustom yourself to avoiding responsibility in different ways, but first, at least start to notice these dangerous habits behind you, and if you suddenly:
- Blame
- Justify
- Defend yourself
- Complain
- Feel shy
Then immediately stop doing it. And yet, only by taking full responsibility for yourself and your life can you become truly free and truly lead your life.
