All our actions carry consequences; everything comes with strings attached. The ability to acknowledge those consequences and strings is personal responsibility; it’s when you retain accountability for your actions and their aftermaths, realizing that it’s you who build up your life and not a concatenation of chance circumstances.
Once you have acknowledged and accepted your personal responsibility, you can respond to life’s situations more freely. Instead of looking upon yourself as a victim of life’s vagaries, you feel like a driver who is getting more and more competent at every turn of the way.
The only snag is that holding oneself accountable is not an easy thing at all. One needs to be brave, realistic, and fully accept one’s driving, leading role. Some understanding of how it can be done will also come in handy. A few pieces of advice listed below can help you on your way to the driver’s seat at the steering wheel.
To begin with, why you should busy yourself with it in the first place
When you get well on the path to becoming responsible for your bungling, you will find it is worthwhile because:
- You win others’ respect.
- You will feel your self-respect come up.
- By showing to people that you are responsible you could win some enviable opportunities.
- You will bring beneficial changes into your life.
- It redounds to your self-development.
- Admittance of your failures is good for your networking.
- It will bring other people’s trust in you.
Blaming others is wrong
Other people will never play an as important a part in your life as you do. Therefore, they are not to be blamed for failures. Granted, you can derive a certain satisfaction from that, but it doesn’t get you anywhere, really. It can be you have been victimized, yet making yourself out as a victim will hardly benefit you in other people’s eyes.
Practice on small things first
Responsible individual develops pride in themselves and their achievements. The ability to complete all initiated affairs is highly rewarding. As the performance is getting better and small accomplishments pile up, you have all the rights to pose as a highly able person, and other people will begin to take you at your own evaluation.
Without taking too much stock in the opinions of people around you, personal responsibility means you don’t cheat yourself and fulfill your obligations to yourself. There is no big resolution that, stretched out over a year, won’t become small and perfectly manageable.
Curb grumbling
There is nothing good in grumbling and complaining, it’s a habit to be shaken off. It is counter-productive and it won’t be appreciated by the people around. The best thing it can do is take the edge off your annoyance. Afterwards it becomes annoying itself. You would do better to consider what steps you can take to improve the situation.
Collect relevant opinions
Other people may notice that you’ve started shifting the blame on somebody else or making up excuses – if they tell you about it, heed the feedback. Analyze the situation, find reasons for your defenses and try and understand your colleague or friend who shared better than you did before. You might want to enter feedback into your relationship on a regular basis.
Get rid of the habit of giving excuses
If you give too many excuses, you will never achieve total responsibility. Don’t look for outside reasons. Even if you were really and truly late due to unusually heavy traffic, consider: you might have left for your office earlier.
Finding your own mistakes is much better for developing your sense of responsibility in the long run.
Formulate goals and schedule their completion
Setting clearly defined goals makes your life assume purpose and direction. Living without goals seems sporadic. Nevertheless, some people go on living without setting goals for fear of making life too demanding. Besides, if they fail, they will have to take responsibility and face their shortcomings.
Meanwhile, those accustomed to moving from a goal on to a goal create new positive factors in their lives increasing its worth with each successful accomplishment.
Achieving goals highlights both our strong and weak points for us and for other people as well.
Distinguish between personal and impersonal remarks
When someone voices an opinion different from yours, it is not usually meant as a personal slur. When you encounter objections that aren’t personal, treat them objectively and curb impulsive outbreaks.
Make all your actions mindful
When you get around to making choices, the more consciously you make them, the more powerful they will be. Suit your choices to your goals for better results.
Treat yourself with love
Loving oneself can make people’s sense of responsibility even stronger because they want to treat themselves as well as they can!
It’s a known fact that those who wriggle out of acknowledging their shortcomings usually are low on self-esteem. People who love themselves are happy and comfortable with themselves without waiting for others’ praise or appreciation. Also, they are in terms of all their personal traits.
So we can safely infer that low self-esteem is indicated by the avoidance of taking responsibility (and consequently developing a winning attitude).
Individuals who possess a good amount of self-confidence do not dodge responsibility – they don’t need to, knowing they can acquit themselves well. Should they make a mistake, they will be able to rectify it.
Relationships also require responsibility
To arrive at a perfect relationship, either romantic or a business one, one needs to put in some work. You don’t want to take others for granted, nor do you want to be taken for granted. Without investing time and consideration into a relationship you won’t make it work both for you and the other party.
On an everyday basis, it doesn’t take a lot to maintain caring relationships. Let your friends and partners unburden themselves with you, keep in mind their important dates, make presents and arrange outings just because.
Learn to cope with negative emotions
They say, “Into each life, some rain must fall.” The time comes to all of us when we are plagued by negative emotions because life is dragging us down. If we can do nothing about it right now we have to accept the state of things, bite the bullet and wait until the tide will turn.
It’s for mature people to be able to come to terms with a negative period and negative feelings; those who can accept the current sad situation begin to think of any positive actions to be taken sooner.
Get ready to act
Responsibility in a given situation often means taking a calculated action. A responsible individual always understands that their action may be a mistaken one, but on the other hand, they know that they won’t be stopped by a failure. A mistake often shows the way to correct it. Only those who do nothing never commit themselves.
It’s important to stay healthy
Responsibility and an active attitude can bring you success in your professional and personal life, but there is another aspect to it: you should stay healthy. Health is necessary for being responsible and reaping the rewards. Of course, it doesn’t mean you have to stay away from parties, but it’s a different thing altogether if you are ever mindful of maintaining a salubrious lifestyle.
Make sure you get as much sleep as you need and find tastier things to eat than junk food.
