Responsibility. I never used to think that this word could conjure up the idea of freedom, but as I am reading The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, it does just that. Taking responsibility for my every action has made me step back and question what I do and why I do it, and then go further and ask myself if I want to change my actions.
I have spent a lot of years thinking that life was happening to me. The truth, of course, is that my life is taking shape based on the choices I make every day. This is actually empowering. It means that I have the ability to go where I want to go and become who I want to become. (Of course, figuring that out can be a whole other thing but that is for another post.)
How often have you been talking to a friend who does something you want to do but then your mind jumps in and offers you a convenient reason why you can’t do what they do? Well, I don’t have the money to spend on a personal trainer like they do. Well, I can’t get get together with my friends anymore because I work too much. Well I can’t attend that seminar because I have a baby. Well, I can’t lose weight like her because I’ve been heavy-set all my life.
Whatever our reasons (and they are usually excuses, aren’t they?), whatever MY reasons, at least if I start taking responsibility for the fact that these reasons aren’t happening to me, but because of me, it is a start.
Years ago, I spent a really long time trying to process the breakup I went through with my fiancé from college. At first I blamed him—for a number of reasons. Then I blamed myself—for a number of reasons. Some of the reasons were valid and needed to be examined for me to process and then move on in a health manner. But the problem is that I got stuck in a very negative space for quite a long time because I was so focused on placing blame somewhere. And blame is different than responsibility. Blame is actually the opposite of responsibility. When we place the blame on someone or something else, we usually do it to relieve ourselves of having to take any responsibility or action. Even as I blamed myself for certain things and wallowed in my apparent inadequacies—“I was too emotional,” “I didn’t assert myself enough,” and so on—I never thought about taking the next step and actually working to improve those inadequacies and thus improve myself as a person.
That is what responsibility is all about—owning our thoughts and our actions. Responsibility is recognizing when something isn’t working and then doing something about it. While not everything that happens is within our control, the way we act in any given situation is within our control. That thought is empowering and uplifting. While taking responsibility gives us power, throwing blame at others strips us of that power and leaves us unhappy. I can tell you that during those few years where I was in a vicious cycle of blaming (mostly) my ex-fiancé and then myself, I was very unhappy. I felt paralyzed and unable to move forward.
We can be in control of our own lives. We can choose our future. It is a mantra worth repeating every day: “I am responsible for my own happiness. I am responsible for my own life.”
So we need to ask ourselves this question: Where do I want to be in life? What are my goals? What is holding me back from achieving my goals and how can I take responsibility to start moving toward them today?
During my second pregnancy (I am currently in my third trimester), I haven’t work out nearly as much as I did during my first pregnancy. Yes, I am busier because I have a little one to take care of now, and yes I am more tired because he still gets up every night (at least once). But this is where I can either blame the circumstances in my life or I can get brutally honest with myself and admit that my workouts have not been at the top of my priority list—in other words, I can take responsibility for the fact that I haven’t worked out as much. When I do this, it empowers me to ask how important this priority is to me (and don’t feel bad when you discover that some things don’t make it into your list of top priorities—not everything can). Since exercise is a top priority for me, I committed taking just fifteen minutes (I am busier these days but I certainly can carve out fifteen minutes) out of my day to exercise, and that has helped me rekindle the habit.
I am responsible for my habits, I am responsible for my happiness, I am responsible for my life. Every day I repeat this to myself, and every day I feel stronger.
