Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge! Have you ever known someone who seemed effortlessly successful, always upbeat and perennially optimistic? The kind of people good things just seem to happen to? Do you ever wonder what makes them so effective and influential, or why some people seem to have it all together while others seem scattered and disjointed?
Over the years, I’ve come to learn that there are no secrets to success. Rather, there are simple principles of personal effectiveness that are adopted and embraced by the most fulfilled, successful people in our culture. I call these the Tenets of Personal Effectiveness, and the first one is Embrace Personal Responsibility.
No one is responsible for your life circumstances except you. Yes, people and events may impact you in ways you cannot control, but ultimately you are the only person who can decide what you do with the experiences you’ve had, the dreams you aspire to, and the actions you take each day.
The opposite of this is victim mentality, and it is one of the most debilitating mindsets I know of. It’s often caused by traumatic events in our past that made us feel besieged by fate or helpless to save ourselves. But the past is the past. Effective people don’t live in the past. They’ve learned from the past. Then they’ve let it go. They live each day in the present, with their eye on the future they wish to create.
One Thing To Think About
Don’t give your power to the past—to people who have hurt you or to the experiences that undermined your self-confidence. Step into the full magnificence of who you are, investing yourself in the belief that you can handle anything that comes your way. Then take responsibility to handle it.
One Question To Answer
Does your typical response to life events come from a position of control and calm, measured response, or powerlessness and dramatic reaction?
One Challenge To Take
Answer the following questions:
- Are you allowing yourself to fall into the trap of victim mentality in any area of your life?
- If you were assuming full responsibility for every area of your life, what action would you take?
- Are there any areas of your life where you typically surrender your responsibility?
- Based on what you’ve discovered, what changes could you make in your current approach to personal responsibility?
Take Care of You!
Kim
