You are in charge of your success; take responsibility.

If there is one thing that is absolutely necessary to attain personal development and ultimately achieve success in life, it is taking responsibility. Personal responsibility means that you and only you are in charge of your own happiness and success. It means accepting that you are responsible for the choices you make, your actions and the consequences that follow those actions. Obviously, we can’t control everything. There are some things we cannot change. But we can change ourselves. We can change the way we think and act. This is something we have charge of. The key is to personally ‘own’ your life rather than relinquishing the control of your life to others. Don’t just go through life as a spectator, always on the sidelines, cheering others and never making an impact.

In the words of Denis Waitley, ‘a sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences’. Accepting responsibility is not always an easy thing to do, but if we fail to do this, it’s almost impossible to attain success. Some of us go through life blaming our failures on our environment, our parents, teachers, poverty, etc. when in reality, YOU are in charge. You are 100% responsible for how you choose to respond to the events in your life. If you fail to accept responsibility for things in your life that make you unhappy, you’ll keep making excuses and you’ll discover that you’re not making any progress towards achieving your goals.

A wise man once said “failure is often not caused by lack of ability but lack of commitment” and commitment means taking responsibility. For instance, if you take responsibility for a failed test/exam and do not blame your teacher or someone else, you may realize that you did not do everything possible to ensure that you received a good grade. Perhaps you did not ask questions from the teacher or even your college when you didn’t understand the topic. Perhaps you did not spend very many hours studying, instead deciding to play games or doing unnecessary things. As you begin to think about the failed test and evaluate your responsibility for it, the wiser choices that you could make to prepare for the next test become obvious.

One of the best ways to begin to take control of your own life is to watch your language. Stop saying things like ‘life’s not fair’, it’s not my fault’, ‘someone should do something’. These statements put you in the victim position. Instead use phrases like ‘I must do something’, ‘I will do something’. ‘Man’ did not say the weather is too hot, we’re unfortunate! No! ‘man’ said we’ll make air conditioner- someone took responsibility. Be that man!

Secondly, do away with negative emotions as possible. Don’t blame someone or something else for something in your life that you are not happy about rather than changing how you react to the situation or person. In addition, believe in yourself. Develop an ‘I can’ attitude If you don’t have confidence in yourself, others won’t.

Finally, be accountable. Give everything 100% effort. When things go well, accept your well-deserved rewards and when they don’t, admit your fault and learn from your mistake. Don’t look for who or what to blame.

And remember, failure is a part of life. As Vince Lombardi once said, ‘it’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up’.

 You are in charge of your success; take responsibility.

........java