Taking personal responsibility to empower yourself
When you blame other people, you give away your power. You allow them to affect your environment, behavior and well-being, the results you achieve, and how you feel. Blaming others is incredibly debilitating because it takes control away from you, making you feel powerless and helpless.
Taking personal responsibility is wonderfully freeing and empowering because you recognize that you decide how to feel, how to react to circumstances, and what you choose to do — or, indeed, not to do. On the flip side, realizing that you have to deal with the consequences of your decisions, without the luxury of being able to blame circumstances or other people, can be really scary.
Considering whether negative anchors are holding you back
You can find yourself paralyzed into inaction for fear of making mistakes and being taken to task. Sadly, mistakes are one of life’s certainties, especially if you decide to live your life to the full and take risks.
When you’re afraid of doing something, it’s worth asking yourself these questions:
- Are you stopping yourself from doing something because you’re afraid of how someone reacted previously?
- Are you allowing a past experience to affect your present thinking?
- Are you allowing yourself to stay anchored to a past event where you saw yourself as a “failure” and are reliving negative feelings?
Looking at your patterns of behavior
NLP recognizes that people use unconscious patterns of behavior as strategies to get through life. Becoming aware of these patterns is very useful so that you can do more of what works for you and change those that get in the way of your success.
If your strategy for dealing with mistakes is to dwell on their negative consequences, you can change this pattern of behavior by viewing them as feedback rather than failure. Ask yourself what you learned from each experience and what you’d do differently in future.
Neuro-linguistic programming: To thine own self be true
Don’t drive through your life with one foot on the brake because you’re trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Taking personal responsibility and really motoring is so much easier when you understand who you are at your core and what you want to achieve in life.
You can take action when what you do allows you to live your life with purpose and makes your soul sing.