Personal Responsibility - A Fruitful Roadmap to Success
Have you ever blamed someone or something for the fact that you haven’t yet achieved what you wanted in your life?
Do you sometimes use excuses like “I don’t have time or I don’t have money,” for your failures or shortcomings?
Are you pointing fingers saying, “This is the reason that I’m not doing so and so or getting such and such?
Have you compared yourself to someone else more successful than you currently are and blamed your circumstances or the system for your comparative situation?
Then this article is for you.
When you hear the word “responsibility,” what do you think of first? Many people think of the word BLAME, as in, “Whose responsibility is this?” I’d like to instead suggest that you think of responsibility as seizing what’s in front of you, exerting choice, and taking control. The real meaning of responsibility is the ability to respond. It’s going out and creating what you want through personal choices.
The fundamental responsibility that each of us has is that we are completely, 100% responsible for how our lives turn out. This is tough! When we like how things are turning out, it’s quite easy to say that we are responsible for our success. But when things aren’t so good, we’re so quick to point fingers at other people and place the blame on them. Have you ever known someone who will accept no responsibility? Some people are perpetual victims of what other people do!
The more you take responsibility for every single aspect of your life, the more every part of your life will improve at the same time. In fact, I do not believe that you can ever achieve big success without personal responsibility.
I have witnessed many people in my life who really want to move up to the next level, but instead they begin to feel frustrated. They start to point fingers, blaming their situation, the economy, their parents, their marriage, the price of gas, “the system”, the government, some education they took or whatever else they can find to shirk responsibility for where they are currently. Thus, most of us have a tendency to search for something outside ourselves as we look for solutions to our problems. We so badly want someone else to fix our lives for us.
However, Life is all about choices. I agree that it is easy to depend on others and blame others, but that is no fun way to live. Taking decisions and working on them and then taking responsibility for the outcome keeps life alive and vibrant with action.
When you’re personally accountable, you take ownership of situations that you’re involved in. You see them through, and you take responsibility for what happens – good or bad. You don’t blame others if things go wrong. Instead, you do your best to make things right.
In learning to become accountable it is important to know that Every decision we make creates our circumstances and because of that we are ultimately responsible for every success, failure, happiness, unhappiness, financial situation, everything.
Accepting that you are completely responsible for yourself and your results and realizing that no one else is coming to the rescue is the beginning of peak performance.