Self-Responsibility

"All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you." Wayne Dyer

A theme which has emerged for me over the past few weeks is how we blame others or feel like victims of our circumstances, and in the process completely disempower ourselves.  Our default mode is to try and change what is on the outside, while steadfastly refusing to look within and make any change ourselves. 

I don’t want to explore why we do this, but rather look at the effects of this choice. Are you frustrated and do you feel powerless over any situation at work or home? If you are, then you are probably trying to change someone else or something over which you have no control. Are you taking responsibility for your part in this situation?

Let’s break the word RESPONS-IBILITY down.
RESPONS-IBILITY….or your ABILITY to RESPOND.

How do you chose to respond when a person isn’t behaving the way YOU want them to behave? Have you found that the more you try and get them to change, the more they don’t. You CAN’T control how somebody else thinks, feels and behaves. You CAN control how you chose to think, feel and behave about the person or the situation. Once you examine how you chose to think about the person and behave towards them, something seems to shift. You make this choice for your own peace of mind and not to try and change the other person. I have seen again and again how, once we chose our responses and make the changes within us, the person or situation seems to miraculously change.

Personal responsibility is a choice. As I see it, we have two options:

• The easy path, which involves blaming, making excuses and whining, the result of which is a sense of being disempowered in the long run, or
• The difficult path, which involves taking full responsibility for how you are think, react and feel and making choices about how you will think, react and feel going forward. This option is a lot more hard work, but is sure to lead you directly into your personal power.

The choice is yours, as are the consequences.

This blogpost was inspired by Bongiwe Nxele.