Have you any idea of the incredible impact that taking full responsibility for yourself and your actions could have on your life?
Fast approaching the age of 50 I still hadn’t grasped this until I was put in a position to either sever all ties with my parents or change myself. By deciding to change myself first, not my mother and not our relationship I had to take full responsibility for who I was for the first time in my life. Take a moment and think about your relationships, do you blame others, make excuses and play the victim? These all play a part in stopping you take on that responsibility for yourself.
- Blame is one of the things I continually did consciously and subconsciously for years. When anything went wrong it was never my fault (always my mother’s in my case) so I could say that she had failed, not me. When I made some very poor financial decisions in my life they were of course my mother’s fault……it was my upbringing so she should sort it out. By doing this I gave mum some of my control; I couldn’t move forwards and I ended up resenting her even more.
- Focusing on what went wrong in my life left me continually criticising my mother for everything that didn’t work out making things seem much worse. This became a habit for me and over time I automatically only saw the negative in any situation.
- I very much became the martyr with all the blaming, making excuses and complaining I was doing, taking no responsibility whatsoever for anything that happened to me. I felt I had no influence over myself or others and became very helpless.
The very first day I started to take responsibility for my life, I took back some of my control.
Here are a few of the steps I took which you can implement today once you decide to be in charge of your life.
- Accept who you are right now; you are the way you are because of your own thoughts and patterns, not other people’s.
- You don’t need to be happy with this, just accept it.
- Understand only you can make yourself happy, don’t expect, depend or rely on others for this.
- Forgive yourself - this was a big one for me, but people make mistakes and move on. It helped me to know that I had made the best decision I could at the time with all the information I had.
- Forgive others, don’t blame them and don’t hold a grudge against them, they are on their journey, focus back on yourself.
- Let go of the need to be responsible for others, it is not your job to make them happy, as it isn’t their job to make you happy.
- You always have a choice as to how you react to a situation and if it is your decision to focus on the positive, no one else can take this away from you.
- Accept the blame if you’re wrong, take that risk and don’t be scared to mess up, it’s all a learning curve and how you learn.
I am still on my journey and accepting responsibility can be a lifelong process but the benefits are incredible as you really do develop an incredible sense of freedom and purpose in life.
Accepting responsibility for my life, my actions and my behaviour was the beginning of the healing process I went through, after suffering from years of pain and heartache with my mother.
Wherever you are on your journey I encourage you all to think about this today - it could change your life!
