YOU NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE // Why, How and 3 Ways to Start Today

What's going on? Welcome back to my channel. I think we can all agree that at some point in our lives, we hear or read or see something that just resonates really strongly with us, that shifts our perspective, that gets us thinking about things or our goals or our life in a different way. And for a lot of people, those are quotes, quotes that hit home, that just become part of the way that we think. And for me, a long time ago, I think I read a quote, I'm pretty sure it was in a Jack Canfield book, and he said something along the lines of, your life will change the minute you take 100% responsibility for it. And I started to think about it and figure out how that was going to apply to my life. And I'm not really sure what about that sentence or that quote that he had written that I was reading in a book. I'm not sure what about. It hit home so much for me, but. But it shifted a lot of what I was about to do in the future. This was many, many years ago, but I started thinking about responsibility versus fault and how I'm supposed to take responsibility in my life for things that I don't have control over or for things that have happened to me that aren't my fault, but I'm supposed to take responsibility for them. So I really set out to use this quote again. I really don't know why that was the one that really hit home. But your life really does change when you take responsibility for it. And I think we need to talk more in depth, a little bit about how taking responsibility for your life changes your life. Kind of like I have already said, responsibility. Taking responsibility for your life, taking 100% responsibility for your life does not mean that things are necessarily your fault or things that are out of your control or things that have gone wrong or maybe bad things that have happened to you are your fault. There's fault and there's responsibility. And we're talking about responsibility. Just because something has happened to you doesn't mean it's your fault. Fault. But your role in life is your responsibility. So we talk about the reasoning behind taking responsibility for your life. Because you need to play an active role in your life. You need to acknowledge your role in your life, your actions, your reactions, how you think about things, how you respond to things, circumstances, people, the world around you, all of that is your responsibility. Regardless of something that has happened that might or might not be your fault, that might or might not be in your control, but your reaction, your role in your life is your responsibility. And that's ultimately what is going to determine the outcome from that situation or interaction or that circumstance that that happened in your life. By taking responsibility for your life, you kind of agree to eliminate excuses, justifications for your behavior and blaming other people for the things that have happened. Again, it doesn't mean that if there's something really bad that has happened to you that that's your fault, but your reaction and your response and what you learn from your life and those events and is on you. You have to acknowledge your role. So taking responsibility doesn't mean saying this, this, and this is my fault. It's saying, I'm not going to blame other people. I'm not going to be a victim in life. I'm not going to justify my behavior or inaction or responses. And I'm also done making excuses for why I'm not getting things done or reaching my goals or, or whatever you might be working on or working toward. So it's just about acknowledging your role and eliminating the justification and the excuses and the blaming that sometimes we do because it's honestly easier. It's really difficult to take responsibility for our lives and learn the lessons and do what we need to do and acknowledge our role that we play in the world around us. That's definitely not the easy path to take, but it's the path that also, on the flip side, lets us take credit for what we do well, for what we are doing to get closer to our goals or the things that we accomplish. People who tend to blame and justify their behaviors also tend to minimize the things that go well or they might be waiting for the other shoe to drop or, or they might attribute something good that has happened to luck. Taking responsibility for your life and eliminating excuses and justifications and blaming also lets you and gives you the permission to take credit for the things that you're doing well. And that's a huge piece of it. Taking responsibility for your life doesn't just mean saying, yeah, I messed up, I'm sorry, or yes, I did this fact, this is on me. It's also, I did this Go me. It's holy cow, my hard work paid off. I did XYZ and I achieved xyz and I'm going to be proud of that. I want you to take responsibility for your life and your shortcomings and the excuses that you might be making. But I also want you to give yourself credit for, for the things that you're doing well so that you can celebrate every single win that you experience, whether it's small or big, but that you can give yourself credit for the life that you're living and the accomplishments that you're accomplishing. By taking responsibility for both the quote, unquote good and quote unquote bad, you're also developing and building respect for yourself and other people. People learn to trust you if they know you're somebody who acknowledges your shortcomings or you're somebody who's going to say sorry if you mess something up or if you do something unintentionally negative to somebody else. Other people have respect for people who take responsibility for their lives. By doing this and really saying, all right, I'm going to do my best to take 100% responsibility for my life. You not only develop respect for yourself, but also from other people by taking that responsibility, that 100% responsibility for your life. You are constantly showing respect for other people, but ultimately yourself. Your mind learns to trust you because you're not making excuses and you're not justifying your behavior and you're saying, this happened fact. Now, what can I do to move the needle forward or what's the next decision I can make that's going to get me back on track? You learn to show respect for yourself and other people along the way. And that's a huge piece that people don't realize that's really important. And one of the big reasons that we need to take 100% responsibility for our lives. We want other people to respect us, but you really also need to be able to respect yourself in this life. There are a lot of ways to take responsibility, to acknowledge your role, to let somebody know that, hey, this is something I'm really working on. But there's three big ones that I want to give you that you can go out and start doing like today as soon as you listen to this. And the first one is learn to apologize. I know that sounds really simple, but we teach kids if they hurt someone's feelings or they do something wrong to say they're sorry. But then as adults, for some reason, we start to skate by and we don't really start to apologize to other people kind of as much as we should. So really recognize if you've done something wrong, acknowledge your role in that. Whether you're apologizing to yourself or somebody else or a group of people, it's not easy. Again, this whole taking responsibility for your life thing is a little bit uncomfortable if you're not used to it. But by learning how to apologize and genuinely acknowledging your role in a situation, you show Other people, you respect them and you're willing to make it right or you're willing to to not just skate by and save face because that's the easier thing to do. And you're willing to get a little uncomfortable by apologizing. So the first big thing is if you do something wrong, acknowledge your role in whatever it was and apologize for the people that are closest to us. We tend to not think we have to apologize or acknowledge our wrongdoings, but those are the people that are most important to other each you and you should be apologizing to them. Again, I know it's not always the fun thing to do, but if you do something and you know in your gut that it was wrong or even you messed up, always err on the side of caution and apologize to that person or yourself. A second big way to start taking responsibility for your life is to follow through with your commitments. People who tend to blame other people or justify their behavior also tend not to follow through with things they said they're going to do or with commitments or promises that they've made. These are the people that if they don't feel like it, they're not going to do the thing. Now, that's not to say sometimes we don't need a break, we don't need a rest, of course. But people who tend to blame and make excuses and justify their behavior also tend to be less on the end of willing to follow through with what they said they were going to do, whether they're telling somebody else or themselves. If you wake up in the morning and you're like, I'm going to do X, Y, Z, and then a half an hour goes by and you haven't done anything, or the end of the day gets there and you're like, oh, I just didn't feel like it. You might be be somebody who doesn't follow through with the things that you tell yourself you're going to do. And that's just as important as you telling somebody else that you're going to do something. You need to be able to follow through with the commitments that you're making to yourself, but also to other people. So really pay attention to your ability and willingness to follow through with the commitments that you're making and the things that you're saying you're going to do. And when you don't, are you saying things like, well, I just didn't feel like it, or I had a rough day at work, or you blame somebody else, or you justify why you didn't do that thing or follow through, really pay attention to this behavior. Because when you follow through with the things that you are promising to yourself and you're telling yourself that you want to accomplish, and also the things that you're telling other people that you're going to do or work on, when you follow through with that, you learn to trust yourself and other people learn to trust you. If you're coming to my office and you're like, all right, I'll see you Thursday, and you don't show up, and I call you and you're like, oh, I'm so sorry. This happened, this happened, this happened. I'll see you next Thursday. And I say, all right. And then the next Thursday, you don't show up, and you're like, hey, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll see you next Thursday. Thursday. I'm really not going to trust you that you're going to show up that third Thursday after not having shown up the past couple times. So by following through and showing up and acknowledging your role in life and taking responsibility, other people learn to trust you, but you also learn to trust yourself. So if you're telling me you're going to show up on Thursday and you don't, your brain, the next time you say, hey, I'm going to see Lori on Thursday, your brain is thinking, probably not. No way. We make excuses every time. We're probably going to end up laying on the couch and watching Netflix. So you are learning to trust yourself, and other people are learning to trust you. When you follow through, when you show up for the commitments that you're making and the things that you're saying that you're going to follow through with, and the third way to take responsibility for your life. Again, there are many more than this, but these are the three big things that I tend to talk a lot with my clients about, is to acknowledge your choices. A lot of times we will do something and then we'll say, well, I didn't have a choice. Honestly, you did. We always have a choice. But you may have not liked the consequences of the alternative decision or. Or the other choice might not have aligned with your values or your likes and dislikes and your morals. So you think you don't have another choice, but you do. It just doesn't align. So your default is to go with the decision that aligns with your morals and your values and what your life is all about. So we always have a choice. People who take 100% responsibility for their life are always saying, I had Choices. And I'm owning that I went with this one for XYZ reason. They're not justifying why they made the decision, but they're acknowledging that these are their choices and this is the one that they chose. Not because it was a default or because they just didn't feel like they had a choice or somebody else made it for, for them. It's because they chose. We will ultimately always do what we truly want to do. You just always have to acknowledge your choices. Again, it's okay if the alternative doesn't align with your values and your morals and your lifestyle. That's okay. But by saying I didn't have a choice, you're not teaching yourself that, yes, I had a choice and I chose this one because it aligns with my morals and my values are. Or you're not saying I had these two choices and I just didn't feel like going with the more difficult one, so I took the easy route instead. If we're not taking responsibility for our lives, we'll say I just didn't have a choice. But in reality, you do. There's always a choice. There's always decisions to be made. We just don't even think about the process that goes into how we make decisions, decisions. And part of taking 100% responsibility for your life is acknowledging those choices, how you make decisions and when you make them, if they're the quote, unquote wrong decision or you went the wrong way, that you'll say, okay, I messed up and I need to go the other direction. But acknowledging your decisions, making choices, and really recognizing your role in the decision making process is that incredibly important to taking 100% responsibility for your life. Just remember, taking responsibility for your life doesn't mean that things are your fault. There's always going to be things that are out of our control that we don't have a role in what happened initially, but our responsibility is our reaction and our interpretation of, of that event. And avoiding responsibility, avoiding accountability in life doesn't teach us anything. We don't learn anything about life and we don't really get anywhere worth going if we're not acknowledging our role and being accountable and taking responsibility for our lives. Think about it. For little kids, we tell them, say you're sorry, fix your math homework, come here, let's talk about it. You did XYZ wrong or hey, good job, here's a star. Or here's a happy note because you did a good job doing this today. We teach them how to take accountability for their actions. We teach them how to apologize, and we also praise them when they've done something well. But as adults, as we get older, for whatever reason, we start to skate by, and then we start to justify our behavior and make excuses and blame other people. And we tell ourselves things like, well, I didn't really have a choice, or this happened to me, so this is why I am the way I am. There's always going to be things in life that are out of our control that aren't necessarily your fault, but your role in your life is really significant, and it's 100% up to you to take full responsibility for that.