Take Responsibility for your Life: Why and How to do it.

Do you feel miserable because you haven’t fulfilled any of your dreams and aspirations? And instead of doing something about it, you complain and blame everyone? Since you’re here, I am assuming that you’ve realized this and reevaluated yourself and now, you want to take responsibility for your life. 

First of all, wanting to take responsibility for your life is already a big step. And congratulations on that! 

It is hard to admit that you’re the one in charge of your fate especially when you’re used to blaming others for your failures. Yes, I know that there are lots of external factors that contribute to one’s success and failure. But, we really can’t control these. 

 

The Power of Taking Responsibility

The moment we start taking responsibility for our lives is the moment we take charge of our fate, our future.  By taking responsibility, we stop relying on others (our family, friends, partners) for the future that we want. 

With this, we acknowledge that only we can dictate how our lives should turn out. And we accept the consequences of our actions and choices. We might turn out successful or failure, it is us who decided this. 

When we start taking responsibility for our lives, we slowly transition from being the victim to being a victor.

This is the power of taking responsibility.

“I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

By taking responsibility, we will be able to:

1. Start growing.

What I mean by growing here is to start our journey to personal growth. We can only achieve our fullest potential if we do our part. 

Personal growth is a conscious decision to undertake the right steps towards self-improvement. This can be achieved only if we take responsibility for our lives. 

By taking responsibility, we provide ourselves a better opportunity to grow and be the best we can be. We won’t grow if we just wait for others because this should come from us – this should be our choice. 

• You may want to read this: 5 Tips on How to Start Your Self Improvement Journey.

2. Live an authentic life.

Being the master of our fate, we can choose what we want to do with our lives. 

Instead of having someone to drive us around and dictate where we go, we take the driver’s seat and progress to the destination we want! Being the driver of our lives, we want to arrive at our destination at our own pace and safely. After all, our best interest is what’s good for us. 

Since we are in charge, we stop thinking about what others want for us. Instead, we do what we really want and what makes us happy. This allows us to live an authentic life.

• You may want to read this: First Steps to Achieve Your Goals: Reflect and Visualize.

3. Achieve our goals.

When we break free from that victim mentality (“poor me” “I am so unlucky” “this is your fault”), we start to focus on being the victor. 

Here, we start making decisions that will help us achieve our goals. This guides us to live with intentions to be better. As a result, everything we do has this purpose to achieve what we want. 

This drives us to do what we can to achieve our goals. Instead of waiting for opportunities to come, we make one, grab it, and be successful. 

• You may also want to read this: How to Achieve your Goals and Dreams in 2021.

How to Take Responsibility for your Life

Taking responsibility for our life doesn’t happen overnight. We might have thought about this before but didn’t push through. Or we procrastinated because honestly, it is hard. 

But now, we are committing to the process, right? Let’s do it right this time! 

1. Know what you want in life

Of course, when we take the driver’s seat, knowing where to proceed is paramount, or else, we may end up driving aimlessly.

When we know where we are heading, it will be much easier for us to choose the direction we have to take. This will serve as our guide towards our desired destination. 

Before driving, warm up your engine by pausing and reflecting on where you want to proceed. You are now responsible for your life, so don’t rush. You’ll get there.

2. Acknowledge that you have the choice

It is hard to acknowledge that we have a choice when we make wrong decisions in life. It is so much easier to just blame it on the universe. 

When we don’t have a choice, it weakens us and our critical thinking on deciding about something since we don’t really have a say on it, right? We will just let the universe run its course or others dictate us what we should do. 

But, acknowledging that we have a choice, and owning it, empowers us. It is great to feel that we’re in control of our own destiny. 

When we accept that we alone have the power over how our lives will turn out, we will do our best for ourselves. This also stops us from making excuses.

3. Be accountable for your actions and choices

It is us who made our choices and actions so let’s accept whatever the consequences are. 

Aside from this, we should also do what we said we are going to do. 

For example, we have a goal and we already made an action plan on how to achieve this goal. It is our responsibility to accomplish these tasks to achieve our goals. 

Every time we don’t follow through with something, we lose our credibility which makes us untrustworthy. Even we won’t trust ourselves.

Let’s be accountable for our promises to ourselves and to others. 

To take responsibility for your life seriously, you need to be accountable for whatever decisions and actions you make!

4. Stop the blame game

Now that we know that we have a choice, let’s stop blaming others for our misfortunes. It is our responsibility to better ourselves. Not others’. 

Blaming others is like saying that they have control over us – that we are so powerless that we can’t stand up for ourselves. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we blame ourselves.  What this does is just punish ourselves. Blaming others or ourselves weakens this “power” that we have. 

Remember, we are here to improve ourselves. Blaming won’t do anything. 

So, take responsibility, identify whatever the problem is, and then solve it. Stop the blame game.

5. Quit complaining

Just like blaming, complaining won’t really do anything to help us. 

Most of us complain about things that are out of our control. And sometimes we spend too much energy on this and not actually doing something about what’s bothering us. Also, complaining too much can be toxic. 

No matter how much we complain, this matter won’t really change. So, let’s focus on what we can do, and that is taking care of ourselves. 

This does not mean that we won’t care about others. When you see something that needs to improve to help you or others, ask for accountability from those who can really do something about the issue. Remember that complaining and asking for accountability is different. But, let’s not drain ourselves. We really can’t do anything when we are exhausted already.

6. Be honest with yourself

Yes, there are many who lie to themselves (like me) even though they know that they are lying lol. These people are those who love making excuses why they are not yet growing. 

Just like lying to others, being dishonest to ourselves can hurt us. It is frustrating when we keep on making excuses. And then slowly, we’ll hate ourselves for all our BS. 

Our lies to ourselves are not limited to not fulfilling a goal. We also lie about what we really want and our emotions. This can definitely hurt us for we are stopping ourselves from living authentically.

In order for you to fully take responsibility for your life, just be honest with yourself. Embrace your flaws, your wrong choices, your ups, and downs. Own them for they are part of who you are now. And then, you start moving forward.

7. Focus on your growth

Being responsible for our lives means no more BS. Our main focus is our growth, our improvement. 

It is time that we let go of any nonsense that can possibly distract us in our journey. Examples of these are other’s opinions, peer pressure, and bad habits. 

By focusing on our growth, we focus on our journey to be better. We do this by taking action even if it’s just baby steps. 

Take responsibility for your life by doing the best that you can for yourself. 

Own your choices and actions.

Owning our choices and actions can be so empowering. This allows us to choose and act wisely. Also, this tells us that we are in control of our lives. Isn’t that liberating? 

I know that it looks scary. WHAT? I am responsible for my life??? Where are my parents??? 

But, the sooner you accept this, the sooner you’ll get over this fear and actually live the life you want. 

Also, I know that this “freedom” comes with privilege, and we should acknowledge this. Let’s better ourselves and then maybe we can help others also! We should grow together, right?

To help you, I made a goal-setting planner. I also made a Facebook group where we can share our goals and our accountability posts. Be part of the first members by joining here.

 

Rooting for your growth,

Meredith Blaise ♡