Tag Archives: personal responsibility

22

Don’t Make Excuses

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One of the lessons we learn early on in life is how to make an excuse for something. We can find the most plausible excuse to justify poor behavior, poor performance, or even unethical actions. Learning to make excuses at the moment seems like a way to justify ourselves and our behavior to the world. It means that we are OK. We would have done whatever was expected if the excuse didn’t happen. Excuses are the first step in building a victim’s mentality toward life. You are not in charge; you are in reaction to whatever you face. This choice is a state of mind and will go a long way in determining the success you experience in finances, relationships, or any other area of your life. Learn not to accept a plausible excuse and accept responsibility for your situation. When you do this, you have the power to change things and create what you want in your life.

Responsibility Is Mandatory

There is always a choice when something happens to either make an excuse or accept responsibility for the situation. Accept responsibility for the situation. Making an excuse states to the world takes away all of your power and gives it to whatever excuse we are using. Even if there is a good reason for something, accept responsibility. This attitude puts all the power in your hands and will lead you to take manageable actions to counteract, correct, or rectify the challenge.

We learn early in life to find the plausible excuses that people will accept without question. An illness, a death in the family, the dog ate my homework, or whatever worked. Once you accept this victim mentality, you will start to use it more and more. Excuses seem like an easy option on the surface, but they are not. Each reason we use weakens us a bit, to ourselves and everyone we deal with. One excuse will lead to another and another, and soon you are a powerless victim for all of your life. Look at your life; at work, you find a weakness in a society where you look for excuses. Where you accept responsibility, there is a strength.

Take Manageable Actions Every Day

That strength comes in the form of manageable actions. These are steps available to you every day. Rather than making excuses, you accept responsibility for where you are on this day. That responsibility gives you a chance to take any action to change whatever you are facing and turn the day into more of what you want it to be. There is always something you can do to help alleviate suffering in the simplest terms.

The sooner you decide to take responsibility and manageable actions toward correcting the situation, the better you will handle it. An example would be running out of money, rather than waiting until you have no money left, taking a manageable action, and finding another income stream to help you make ends meet. Rather than blame the economy, a job you were fired from, the world in general, or anything else, accept responsibility for your predicament and find a way out.

Take Control and Ditch the Excuses Permanently

So it will be up to you in the end if you choose to allow excuses to rule your life or if you are going to accept responsibility for where you are and what you do, no matter what, and take action toward meeting the challenges you face. Taking action is claiming power in your life. Making excuses is giving your power away to whatever you give your excuses to. At the end of it all, nobody but you is responsible for your situation, which is reassuring. Taking action is your power of change, and there is always some action you can take. You may not like it, but you can make your life whatever you would like it to be.

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” ― Anne Frank.

“The man who passes sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones.

“In the long run, we shape our lives and ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt.

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

 

22

Focus on Being Kind

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kindness
You are that one

Kindness-The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

People face many challenges every day. There are expectations for performance from ourselves, our bosses, or teachers that make each moment seem not enough. Today, even in those times of complete business, let your focus shift from what you have to do to the small acts of kindness you can be responsible for today. It begins by paying attention to the focus of your thoughts as you look at others in the world today. Focus on being kind. It will correspond with emotions, words, and actions that spread your kindness to others. It begins with your thoughts.

Make Kindness Your Focus

Kindness costs nothing and makes everything in the world better. That is a fact that is indisputable. Time invested in being kind to others or yourself will have positive rewards for your life. It will make your perspective brighter and increase your positive thoughts and feelings, if nothing else. This positivity will make your life a more enjoyable experience because you decided to practice kindness and make being kind a focus of your day.

Kindness is Contagious

Like the most popular viral video you can think of, compassion can spread from one person to another. Each small act of kindness has the possibility of sparking understanding in another. If you choose to say the kind word or do the kind deed, there is no telling how far that act may go. It may allow someone else to see the value of kindness and practice it as well. And that, in turn, may lead someone else to focus on goodness too. So your kind thought or act can ripple through the world and affect people you have never met positively. The influence is just as significant for unkind people. So choose your words and deeds well.

Our Responsibility

Each of us is responsible for the effects our behavior has on the world. We set an example for others to follow, consciously or unconsciously. Each focused thought, word, and action allows you to take control of your influence and make it exactly what you want it to be today, right now at this moment. Focus on practicing kindness in your life in all of your interactions and see what happens. One thing is for sure, and the world will be a better place because of your choices. They are things only you can do.

“How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single minute before starting to improve the world.” ~ Anne Frank

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.” ~ Henry James

“When words are both true and kind, they can change the world.” ~ Buddha

 

“Let us seek to reign nobly on the throne of our highest self for just a single day, filling every moment of every hour with our finest, unselfish best.”~ William George Jordan

21

Responsible

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NEVER MAKE EXCUSES

Accept Responsibility for Life.

Each day, we can make these decisions to bring our lives into balance, enjoy the experience more, and connect us to life in general.

Today is a day of potential with a chance of increasing your enjoyment and energy by accepting things as they indeed are and taking responsibility for them.  Those two skills will allow you to experience a more happy and balanced life.  It is a simple concept but takes discipline to perform consistently. It begins by being conscious of your thoughts, the words you use to express them, and the actions you take because of the ideas you entertain. These are not complex concepts to fathom, nor are they trying to put into practice, but few choose to do them consistently because you have to be consistent in your practice.

Things Are What They Are

It can be difficult for people to accept unpleasant things as a part of their lives. This fact is true of experiencing some significant change on our part. Sometimes it is just easier to wish things were like they used to be, but they never are.  Change is happening all around you and inside you every day. The new comes and takes the place of the old, and that is a reality. To refuse to accept this is a cause of suffering.  Things are what they are. To think anything else is delusionary.

Accept the things in life. All the changes and growth that are going to come until the time that life ceases to exist continually.  Accept yourself and all others and the role they are playing in your life. Acknowledge that there is a divine presence in everyone, even if their actions are harmful and their behavior is unsatisfactory. Accept them and their journey as a part of yours. Life moves, injuries occur, rehabilitation is needed, you may find yourself down and in need of a comeback. All of these are possible once you accept how things are. You will have a solid base to go wherever you want. Accept things as they are because that is how they are.

Responsibility For All

My thoughts, words, and actions are all my responsibility, always.  This fact is a concept more people should focus on in their life. We all make a million decisions in a day. Most are rote actions we complete daily, and those decisions are made subconsciously and may or may not represent what you want to stand for. Focusing on all the ideas we bring into reality with our words and actions means you have to be conscious and aware. Choices of harsh words can harm people deeply below the surface where you can’t directly see the harm. It doesn’t matter what your intent is. It matters what the actual result is. If your words hurt someone, you are responsible for that, regardless of your original intention.

Many people choose to avert responsibility for whatever reason. It is a habit that allows the negative energy of a poor choice to stay with you for a long time.  Learn to accept responsibility for all things in your life, and when it needs to be “fixed,” then start fixing.  The acceptance will lead to a higher quality of life, bringing balance and happiness to your daily experience.  When you accept responsibility for all things, there is no fear of what others think. You are going to be productive and feel better about yourself. Your relationships with significant others, friends, family, and co-workers will also be better. When you make a mistake or hurt someone, take responsibility, and make amends.

Make Two choices Today.

It is up to you today to look honestly at your location and accept that it is a reality. You live where you live. You make the amount of money you make. You have the friends you have. If any of those things aren’t where you would like them to be, then you have the power to change them.  Be responsible for your choices every day and look for ways to learn from those who aren’t so good.  Use them to become better the next time you have options.  All of the things you choose are in your power.  Things may happen out of your control, but your decisions about dealing with them are all under your control. Nobody can make them for you.

As you move through this day, please take a moment and look at the thoughts you are entertaining about your life and how it is progressing today. Are you taking responsibility for where you are? Are you blaming others or circumstances? Are you just existing without much thought about it at all?  You have a conscious choice to see where you are and to accept responsibility for it. Once you do this, you can use your words and actions to make your life a more enjoyable experience. The level of enjoyment you experience is all up to you and the thoughts you choose to entertain in your conscious mind.

“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.”- Nathaniel Branden.

“Even the acceptance of personal responsibility may not overcome the temptation to believe that now is not the time to repent. ‘Now’ can seem so difficult, and ‘later’ appear so much easier. The truth is that today is always a better day to repent than any tomorrow. “-Henry B. Eyring.

“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”- George Orwell.

 

 

21

Following Your Compass

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When you stop and look at where you are in your life and the people you are currently involved with, the biggest factor determining all of this is the values you follow and adhere to in your life. As the late great Zig Ziglar said;

“You are who you are and what you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change who you are and what you are by changing what goes into your mind.”

Our own personal system of values determines the mode of input for all of us.  For every problem I have faced or challenges that arose, the success I have had with it has stemmed from the character I displayed through my values. There have been times in life where my value system was a little murky. That led to questionable behavior and less than ideal results.  That is the compass we all follow, which leads us to the destination in our lives. Where is your compass leading you? Where would you like it to take you?  Your values will reveal these answers. It is as simple as that.

Values

What are your values? A value is a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.  They can be positive or negative or anywhere along thatscontinuum. When I look at myself, Honesty, integrity, compassion, work ethic, independence, learning, kindness, and reliability are all positive values I apply to my behavior.  Since I have placed my focus on these things, life flows quite easily in that direction.

Your behavior is the true measure of your values. If you take what isn’t yours, you are not honest. If you bully someone else into making yourself feel better, then you are a bully. If you have no compassion for those in difficult situations, that tells everything about your life. Values will color all of your experiences with the brush of those questionable values. And when you are sitting there in anger and frustration because things are not working out for you, you have no one to blame but yourself and the negative values you have adopted.

If you don’t like your life, start by changing the values you focus on and practice.

Where Values Come From 

As little humans, we are each trying to figure out what this world is all about from the moment we are born. We are continually taking in information based on the behaviors and reactions of all the people we contact.  This stage lasts the first seven years of life, and during that time, our moral compass is passed on to us by the observed behavior and direct experience with others. Parental figures are the biggest influence, but so is everyone else you come in contact with.

We do not realize it at first, and some never realize it, but we are all responsible for our choices in life and the values we practice in all situations.  Just because we were born into a situation where poor values were practiced is not an excuse. You decide for yourself where your ethics and morality lie. If you choose to be unethical, you are responsible for that and the things which result from that effort.

Your Compass Bearings

When we look at the trajectory of our lives, it is easy to blame others, bad luck, the government, nature, or any factor that exists. Many of the things outside us we have no control over.  We can control the decisions we make around the values and morals we prioritize in our lives.  Our compass bearings are created from this.  There is no more accurate predictor of where that compass is going to take someone than personal values.

We are wholly responsible for the outcomes of our lives, and the more we take that, the better your life experience will seem. Life seems to bring us to the places we show appreciation for, and we show this appreciation through our values and the importance we place on them.

Today is a great time to reflect on your personal system of values and seek places you would like to tweak them in a direction in line with your ideal self. You will define this one way or another.  Please pay attention to the bearings of your compass of values and what they are telling you about life.

Some quotes on Values:

“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” Roy E. Disney

 “Our value is the sum of our values.” Joe Batten

 “If you don’t stick to your values when they are being tested, they’re not values, they’re hobbies.” Job Stewart

“Good moral values are mostly molded from a place where love, faith, and hope exist.” Arsenio V. Manalo Jr