Claim Your Power: Personal Responsibility
Are you ready to step into your power?
What will it take?
Claim your personal responsibility. Once you own your responsibility in whatever is happening or has happened, you let go of blaming others. This gives you the power to make choices that benefit you without attachment or resistance to the past.
We all make choices. Some are useful and some aren’t. When you blame other people for the choices you make or refuse to see how you can make a different choice, you are giving away your power and limiting the possibilities ahead of you.
Instead, own your choices and honor yourself. Make the choices to the best of your ability with the information you have. Then once the choice is made, stay with it if it works for you, or make another choice and course correct.
Know that another choice is possible. Just because you made a string of choices that were not useful to you does not mean you can’t change your course. If you want something different from your life, you must first choose something different.
Your choices influence your life.
I have a client whose life is going along smoothly. She is looking at things through an opportunity lens. This means that everything is an opportunity (even the things that don’t seem to be in the moment). She recently started her own business and is following the flow.
Compare this with her sister who is having difficulty. Her sister, however, made different choices (private school with a big tuition, taking out student loans, not working during college, majoring in a low paying field, doing only the minimum suggested, complaining, blaming, etc.)
Both paid for their own schooling and took out student loans. A loan in essence is giving you an opportunity. For the privilege of having that opportunity, there is a cost – you have to pay it back. Loans are designed to benefit everyone: the people receiving the loan, the organization giving the loan, the people who will benefit in the future (your kids have a better starting point), etc.
My client went to a state school (lower tuition), worked during school, and saw the opportunity to pay off the loans by working three jobs. She was grateful for the opportunity to go to school, have the loans, and be able to have more than one job. Instead of blaming her parents for not being able to pay for her schooling, she was grateful for the generational progress they had made. She saw that her father positioned the family to be able to start at a better place than where he came from. Her belief is “Wow! Look at this opportunity,” and her energy is from a place of gratitude for the abundance in her family’s life instead of the lack of what they provided.
Her sister chose a different route and is complaining about where she is at. If she were to stop the complaining and take personal responsibility for her choices, then she will have more ease in her life. Yes, she still has to pay off the loans (a consequence of her choices), but she won’t be beating herself up every time she thinks of them. She is operating from the belief that there is never enough, and this is what keeps playing out in her life.
With this viewpoint, she is doing far more damage to herself because the brain doesn’t know what is real and what is imaginary. In addition, the Universe gives you what you focus on. Every time she moans and groans her brain registers this as “there is a problem, and I’m a victim.” Thus, the Universe is giving her more problems. She is giving away her power.
How to take personal responsibility
Make the choice to step away from being a victim. When you find yourself complaining, stop.
Claim your power and step into your personal responsibility for everything in your life. Simply say, I am taking personal responsibility for everything in my life.
Look at what choices you made that contributed to where you are currently at. Own these as your choices.
Forgive yourself for any choices that seemed to not benefit you. You did the best you could at the time.
Look for what is good or right about everything.
Look at everything as interesting. Instead of getting upset, say, “That’s interesting” or “That’s an interesting choice.”
Clear any blockages in your thinking. We very often can’t see our own stuff, so working with a coach may be helpful.
Be grateful for where you are at. It could have been so much worse. Find gratitude for what you did and what it allowed for you to be, have, or do.
Claiming your personal responsibility gives you the power to make choices that benefit you. Doing so will open opportunities for you and bring more ease to your life.