The Power of Personal Responsibility

“Taking personal accountability is a beautiful thing because it gives us complete control of our destinies.” ~~Heather Schuck, The Working Mom Manifesto

To kick off 2018, I wrote an article about how to RISE to your next level; to take steps toward becoming the person you aspire to be. One of the components of this personal growth begins the RISE acronym–R for Responsibility.

Taking responsibility for yourself is both scary and empowering. When things in life don’t go well, it’s easy to side step responsibility. “The dog ate my homework.” “I didn’t mean to.” “You started it.” “It’s not fair.” It’s comforting to have something or someone else to blame or point to circumstances beyond your control that give you an “out.” In a way, blaming is a natural reaction to upset or threat. And, it is true that life can be unfair; things do happen that are outside of one’s control. There’s no shortage of reasons for why you “can’t” do something or be somewhere in your life that you want to be. Being your best self and achieving your goals is challenging and there are often roadblocks.

And yet, focusing on what you can’t control won’t get you anywhere but frustrated, stuck, and feeling helpless.  While it is sometimes true that other people or circumstances that you can’t control are interfering with you achieving your goals, it is also true that you still have some things within your own control.

From the definition of responsibility: accountable for something within one’s power, control, or management. We are not responsible for things outside of our own control. We are accountable or responsible for those things within our control, power, or management.

You can control your relationship to the thing outside of your control. You have control over how you respond, react, think about, choose, and act with regard to circumstances or people.

[Tweet “From the vantage point outside of yourself, you are powerless; inside yourself you are powerful.”]

The power inside of you is sobering, scary, and exciting! You can control what you think, what you choose, and what you do. You control how much you believe in yourself and how much effort you make to accomplish your goals. It’s sobering because it’s hard to accept responsibility for this. Bad things happen. Things don’t always go our way. Challenges are hard.  Procrastination or inaction sometimes are easier, or at least feel better in the moment. How you respond to the hard challenges in life can affect whether you feel capable and empowered or defeated, and helpless. Owning your own responses and accepting personal responsibility for your choices can feel heavy; it eliminates room for excuses. It can also feel energized by the personal power it offers.

You make your best life and your best self by fully owning it. All of it. The triumphs and challenges, successes and failures. What you brought to the hard times, what you didn’t do, could have done, did do. How you thought about and reacted to all of it. When you accept that you are responsible for making something of what you have, then you start figuring out what you can do and learning from all of your varied life experiences. That’s where your power lies.

Where to start? Find a small space in your life where you can effect change; clean out a junk drawer, change a habit, alter a perspective or thought pattern. Start small. Then, decide and commit to what you will do to effect the change. Do the committed action consistently. Feel strongly about the commitment you made to yourself and your goal every day to help motivate your consistent action.  Notice what works and what doesn’t. Learn from that and iterate. Try a new approach. Feel the power of being in charge of yourself and effecting that change in your life! Notice the outcome and savor the knowledge that you had the power to make a difference in your own life in some small way. Do it again, and again. The positive feeling will power more momentum and that positive energy is infectious.

Notice that in that small corner of your world, you are powerful! Notice also that you have the power to expand that small area of your world just a little bit more. Own your life, one small step and corner of your world at a time.