Hey people! 🙋♂️👋.....
On my last post I wrote a watered down version of my journey towards Personal Responsibility, today I'm going to share some of the benefits of...taking ownership of your own behavior and the consequences of that behavior.
Photo by Victor Freitas from Pexels
The benefits of taking personal responsibility are numerous, I can't even list all of them in one article, it would be too long to read. I will just share some of the main ones.
Here we go: 👇
Improved self-esteem.
Back in the days when blaming others and making excuses was all I could do, my self-esteem was close to nonexistent, I always felt worthless, there wasn't a single thing that I could seem to handle, well except coming up with more and more excuses. Lack of self-esteem was one of the things that led me to try and learn more about what the problem really was, why I couldn't seem to get rid of that "worthlessness" feeling.
Taking action and focusing my attention on solving one problem at a time made me start feeling more effective with time. I was no longer being controlled by how I felt. I learned to always find a way to get things done, I was no longer waiting passively for things to get better, or for someone to change my situation, I was responsible for my well being.
With time I started feeling more self-worth. Choosing to be responsible and being action-oriented has greatly helped me improve my self-esteem and as a plus, I feel happier.
Happiness is a by-product of action.
Growing and changing.
Owning up my mistakes and failures was hard and scary at first, Carl Jung wrote that;
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.I couldn't agree more. I did not want to be perceived negatively, as imperfect, but then I realized I was already being perceived negatively with my never-ending excuses.
Accepting that the mistakes were mine and that it was my responsibility to rectify them led me to actually finding better ways to avoid repetition of the same in the future. I was no longer finding blames but rather better ways of rectifying the damage already inflicted.
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.wrote Gail Sheehy.
Gaining the respect of others.
No one likes being associated with a person who all they know is making excuses, blaming others, and always complaining about how they are disadvantaged. Basically avoiding taking responsibility means people also start avoiding you the more and more, I learned this through experience, one ends up feeling lonely and left out, which trust me has detrimental effects on one's well being.
As I started embracing taking action for things that required me to, other people started noticing. I wasn't even aware of this until a friend of mine told me that I seemed to be getting more and more things done. Overtime even my mom told me she had seen a tremendous change, through acceptance of my failures and shortcomings, people started having a positive feeling about me. I later came to realize they were regaining their trust in me, and with trust comes the respect.
Getting things done.
We all have a never-ending list of things we would like to accomplish. I had too high much that I expected from myself but nothing was coming to fruition, only continued frustration, anger and self resentment, which we all can agree don't lead to the best but rather towards a never-ending loop of pain.
Coming up with a list of things that I had to get done, and taking my time to actually getting them done. The list of things I always wanted to do or try out stopped to only exist in my rich fantasy world. Of course, it takes time and dedication to actually see something from the start to the end, but it is a process that anyone can learn and be good at.
One just has to start, the dots do connect along the way.
Business author Jim Rohn wrote that;
You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.
Stepping up and owing one's behavior - good or bad, has many benefits that we can all accrue to the betterment of us in the long-term.
Continue keeping it real and stay safe.
Peace. ✌