Taking Responsibility For Your Actions
Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will- his personal responsibility.
~Albert Einstein
One of the greatest challenges in creating a joyful, peaceful and abundant life is taking responsibility for what you do and how you do it. As long as you can blame someone else and be angry with someone else, point a finger at someone else, you are not taking responsibility for your life.
~ Iyanla Vanzant
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
What is one of the most boring and tiresome words you've ever heard?
Just like discipline, responsibility is one of those words you probably hear everyday from people of authority so much that you have developed a tiny bit of defense against it. Yet it is one of the most important things to grow in your life.
When we make excuses for ourselves or try to blame other people for the outcome of something, not only are we failing to take responsibility for our actions, we are equally giving up our power to change. We are showing a character or trait which is common to people who fail at anything or everything.
You are totally responsible for your life.
At first when we realise we have to take responsibility for our actions, it will seem like we are placing on our shoulders a huge responsibility but when we think about it rationally and accept that we are responsible for every action we make, we will realise that there is absolutely nothing we can't achieve or accomplish if we set our minds to it and accept that it is within ourselves and ourselves only, to reach our ultimate goal.
How Do We Become Responsible?
Eliminate blame, eliminate excuses.
Remember when you point a finger at someone, the remaining for fingers point back at you. You have control over yourself when you stop playing the blame game.
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Acknowledge what happened and own up.
When you acknowledge, "Yes, I did this the wrong way," you strike out the need to give silly excuses. "I messed up" is the responsible three-word sentence.
Open your eyes and mind to see yourself clearly.
Taking cognisance of your strengths as well as your weaknesses mean taking responsibility. It means recognising all that is beautiful and wonderful about you.
Practice healthy self-focus
It's exhausting thinking too much of how. you would have made it in life, worrying non-stop about the future, regretting the past and generally feeling sorry for yourself can lead to indulgent and deep self-pity. However, taking time to discover what makes you tick, in a subtle, reflective way is the start of self-love and personal responsibility.
Build your self-esteem
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.
~Brian Tracy
I would say one of the major reasons why people often have self-esteem problem is that they hardly or never take responsibility for their lives. Instead of taking responsibility, they blame. someone else for the bad things that happen. There and then a victim mentality is born and strengthened. This damages all the vital parts of your life including relationships, ambitions and even achievements. This hurt can only stop when you man up and take responsibility for your life.
In Conclusion
When you think everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realise that everything spring only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.
~ Dalai Lama
The acceptance of personal responsibility is what separates the adult from the child. It is the great leap forward into maturity. Responsibility is the hallmark of the fully integrated, fully functioning human being. Responsibility goes hand-in-hand with success, achievement, motivation, happiness and self-actualisation. It's the absolute minimum requirement for the accomplishment of everything you could ever really want in life. Accepting that you are completely responsible for yourself and realising that no one is coming to the rescue is the beginning of peak performance. There's very little that you cannot do or have after you accept that "if it's to be, it's up to me!"
You are where you are because of who you are and not because somebody somewhere made you to be there and everything that exists in your life today exists because of you, your behavior, words, actions and inactions.