“Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility.”
Albert Einstein

“It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”
Sophocles

“A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realization that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make.”
Denis Waitley

What is one of the most boring and tiresome words ever?

Like discipline, responsibility is one of those words you have probably heard so many times from authority figures that you’ve developed a bit of an allergy to it.

Still, it’s one of the most important things to grow and to feel good about your life. Without it as a foundation nothing else here or in any personal development book really works.

So today I’d like to explore personal responsibility with the help from some timeless thoughts on the topic.

1. There is always a price to pay.

“Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
George Bernard Shaw

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
Unknown

Not taking responsibility may be less demanding, less painful and mean less time spent in the unknown. It’s more comfortable.

You can just take it easy and blame problems in your life on someone else. But there is always a price to pay.

When you don’t take responsibility for your life you give away your personal power.

2. Build your self-esteem.

“Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction.”
Brian Tracy

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion

Why do people often have self-esteem problems?

I’d say that one of the big reasons is that they don’t take responsibility for their lives. Instead someone else is blamed for the bad things that happen and a victim mentality is created and empowered.

This damages many vital parts in your life. Stuff like relationships, ambitions and achievements.

That hurt will not stop until you wise up and take responsibility for your life. There is really no way around it.

And the difference is really remarkable. Just try it out. You feel so much better about yourself even if you only take personal responsibility for your own life for day.

This is also a way to stop relying on external validation like praise from other people to feel good about yourself.

Instead you start building a stability within and a sort of inner spring that fuels your life with positive emotions no matter what other people say or do around you.

Which brings us to the next reason to take personal responsibility…

3. Give yourself the permission to live the life you want.

“When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.”
George O’Neil

By taking responsibility for our lives we not only gain control of what happens. It also becomes natural to feel like you deserve more in life as your self-esteem builds and as you do the right thing more consistently.

You feel better about yourself.

This is critically important.

Because it’s most often you that are standing in your own way and in the way of your success.

It’s you that start to self-sabotage or hold yourself back in subtle or not so subtle ways once you are on your way to the success you dream of.

To remove that inner resistance you must feel and think that you actually deserve what you want. You may be able to do a little about that by affirmations and other positive techniques.

But the biggest impact by far comes from taking responsibility for yourself and your life. By doing the right thing.

4. Taking action becomes natural.

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is often said that your thoughts become your actions. But without taking responsibility for your life those thoughts often just stay on that mental stage and aren’t translated into action.

Taking responsibility for your life is that extra ingredient that makes taking action more of a natural thing. You don’t get stuck in just thinking, thinking and wishing so much.

You become proactive instead of passive.

5. Understand the limits of your responsibility.

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
Epictetus

Taking responsibility for your life is great. But that is also all that you have control over.

You can’t control the results of your actions. You can’t control how someone reacts to what you say or what you do.

It’s important to know where your limits are. Otherwise you’ll create a lot unnecessary suffering for yourself and waste energy and focus by taking responsibility for what you can’t and never really could control.

6. Don’t forget to take responsibility in everyday life too.

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
Helen Keller

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Abraham Lincoln

Life consists of each day. Not just the big events sometime in the future.

So don’t forget to take responsibility for the little things today too. Don’t postpone it.

Taking responsibility for your life can be hard and taxing on you. It’s not something you master over the weekend. So you might as well get started with the it right now.

7. Aim to be your best self.

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.”
Henry Ward Beecher

“Peak performance begins with your taking complete responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you.”
Brian Tracy

This is of course not easy. But it’s a lot of fun and the payoff is massive.

• You are not trying to escape from your life anymore. Instead you take control, face what’s going on and so the world and new options open up for you.
• You start taking action not just when you feel like it. Improvement isn’t about short spurts once in a while. Consistent action is what really pays off and can help you achieve just about anything.
• You build your self-esteem to higher levels. And may discover that many smaller problems you experience regularly such as negative thinking, self-defeating behavior and troubled relationships with yourself and others start to correct themselves as your self-esteem improves. You gain an inner stability and can create your own positive feelings within without the help of validation from other people.

So how do you take responsibility?

Well, it’s simply choice that you have to make.

Reviewing the reasons above and also the awesome quotes is for me a powerful way to keep myself in line. Though it doesn’t always work.

Doing the right thing in every situation is hard to do and also hard to always keep in mind. So don’t aim for perfection.

Just try to be as good a person as you can be right now.

When you know those very important reasons above it becomes a lot easier to stick with taking responsibility. And to not rationalize to yourself that you didn’t really have to take responsibility in various situations.

That doesn’t mean that I beat myself up endlessly about it. I just observe that I have hurt myself and my life. And that doesn’t feel good. And so I become less prone to repeat the same mistake.

Also, two habits that I think are essential to be able to do the right and often hard thing and take personal responsibility are the ones I wrote about a few weeks ago: increasing your energy levels and learning to be present.

Without the extra energy and the presence it becomes more difficult to take action and to not create extra resistance and negativity within yourself.

“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction”

This quote comes from the ancient Sanskrit Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita and every time I look at it I feel a sort of freedom and relief. There is a certain lightness to it.

What does it mean? Well, this is just my interpretation and frankly I think that it’s a bit hard to explain. But I’ll give it a try because it’s been helpful for me.

This quote tells me to understand that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in sitting on my hands and not taking action at all.

Basically, I do what I think is right and that is my responsibility. And then the rest (the possible results), well, that is not up for me to decide about or try to control. I let it go.

What are the upsides of using this in your life?

You become more stable in yourself. You stop grasping all the time for what people think and feel about you. You become less needy. One obvious side-effect of this can be better social interactions. When you stop caring so much about what people may think of you then you relax and say what you want to say instead of trying to protect some image you want to uphold. You become more authentic.

• You focus on the process. I for instance use this when I workout. I don’t take responsibility for the results in my mind. I take responsibility for showing up and doing my workout. The results come anyway from that consistent action. And this makes it easier for me to take this action when I know that is all I need to focus on. Instead of using half of the energy and focus I have available on hoping that I “reach my goal real, real soon”. Focus on the process and you will be a lot more relaxed and prone to continue than if you stare yourself blind on the potential results that never come as quickly as you want to and puts you on an emotional rollercoaster from day to day.
• It brings more enjoyment out of the doing. Because now your focus is just on the doing and not split between the doing and the potential results.
  You become less tired. You don’t grasp emotionally for some desired result. And so you don’t use so much energy for worrying etc. It’s energy efficient.

You can switch between mindsets. I like to play around with them. Sometimes you plan and review where you going and how things are going. But most of the time you just focus on the process, on doing what you do instead focusing on those fruits.

This may sound boring or like you zap all the excitement out of it. But in my experience it makes it easier to get things done. Action is taken with less effort, over thinking and mind made suffering within.

Just like being present this isn’t easy to keep up for longer periods. So you have to plug away and work at it like any other habit.

When you can slip into this mindset life becomes a lot easier. Because you are detached while doing. You are centered in yourself and taking relaxed and calm action. You feel free from many of the emotional chains you have built up in yourself over the years. You are not carrying around a world of things you could never control anyway on your shoulders. You feel kinda light and liberated.

“In school, I could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey.”

“Hollywood, as everyone knows, glamorizes physical courage. . . . if I had to define courage myself, I wouldn’t say it’s about shooting people. I’d say it’s the quality that stimulates people, that enables them to move ahead and look beyond themselves.”

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last few decades you probably know who Clint Eastwood is.

At least a part of the real Clint Eastwood seems to be much like the people he has played throughout his career. Determined and decisive. Tough (just watch Gran Torino for one badass 78 year old man). Centered and not overcomplicating things.

Here are three of my favorite tips from Clint Eastwood for taking charge of your life.

1. Don’t use self-fulfilling prophecies to bring yourself down.

“I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.”

What you think will happen often does. If you focus on and think that things will go badly you interpret things negatively and take actions – or no action at all – based on that. You can’t really see reality, you just have a perspective of it in your mind. Now, whatever you perspective you use your mind will find proof that your current “reality” is “the right one”.

So you have to be smart about things.

Like Clint says, you have to let go of pessimism and choose a perspective that empowers you instead of making you feel like a victim and like things will always turn out in a negative way.

This can be hard because you are so used to your current perspective and feel like you are right about it since you have so much proof that it was right from past events. Also, it’s not that pleasant to admit to yourself that the negative perspective that you may have held for years or decades was a mistake that messed up your life instead of making it better.

When you take charge and choose for instance a more positive perspective things around you change. Many of them may be the same things that were always there. You just see them – and yourself – in a new light now. And you can start using self-fulfilling prophecies to empower instead of disempower yourself.

2. Let go of the illusion of safety.

“If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”

Why do people sit on their hands and get comfortable in their ease and quiet? Well, one big reason is because they think they are safe there. But the truth is safety is mostly a superstition. It is created in your mind to make you feel safe. But there is no safety out there really. Most things don’t come with any guarantees. Everything changes, for better or worse.

You may get layed off.
Someone may break up with you and leave.
Illness will probably strike.
Death will certainly strike in your surroundings and at some point come to visit you too.

This belief in safety is not just something negative. It’s also created by your mind so you can function in life. No point in going all paranoid about what could happen a minute from now day in and day out. But there is also not that much point in clinging to an illusion of safety. So you need to find balance where you don’t obsessed by the uncertainty but also recognize that it is there and live accordingly.

As you stop clinging to your safety life also becomes a whole lot more exciting and interesting. You are no longer as confined by an illusion and realize that you set your limits for what you can do and to a large extent create your own freedom in the world. You are no longer building walls to keep yourself safe as those walls wouldn’t protect you anyway.

3. Take responsibility for your own life.

“Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.”

You can look for the next big thing that will fix you. Read more blog articles. Read more personal development books. Look for people to help. And yes, some articles or books or people will give you insights that resonate deeply with you.

But in the end, if you are an adult then no one is coming. No one is coming to save you. You have to take responsibility for your own life and what happens in it. Other things and people can certainly aid you quite a bit. But you are responsible.

You can go around blaming society or some people for your problems in your life. You can always find scapegoats to judge to feel better about yourself. For a while. You can look for people that will “fix you”. You can do this for the rest of your life if you like. It won’t change much. Whatever has to be done, it’s you who have to take responsibility and do it.

Yeah, things might always not go your way and you will probably have bad luck from time to time. But you still have to focus on yourself and doing what you can do in whatever situation may arise in the outside world.

 “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”
W.M Lewis

“You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.”
Saint Augustine

One of the more common emails I get goes something along these lines:

“Hi! I have read some of the articles on your blog and think personal development is very interesting. But I don’t know where to start. What would you suggest?”

I have thought about this question and today I’d like to give two answers for it.

Of course, you may be here or interested in personal development because you already have some problem you want to solve.

Maybe you don’t have enough time and need to become more effective to get everything done. Maybe you want to improve your social skills. Maybe you have mountain of debt that you need to get off your back. If you are focused on solving such a thing then I hope you will some help here and on other blogs and in books.

But if you don’t know where to start or are just curious about personal development here are two suggestions.

Getting these two fundamental areas at least somewhat into shape will have many positive payoffs and will help you in pretty much any area of the rest your life that you want to improve.

Your body and energy.

If you don’t have enough energy, then it will be a lot harder to improve your life.

You will simply run out of energy after work/school and then you need to rest – or you get lost in getting addicted to reading personal development material – instead of taking action towards your goals and dreams. Or you will not have enough energy to perform as well as you may wish at work or in school.

To achieve more success, to improve your attitude, to improve your relationships it is quite likely that you will need more energy than you have available right now. In fact, your problem may to a large degree stem from the lack of energy that becomes a lack of action. If you already had enough energy to take enough action in the areas you want to improve then the problems would probably be a lot less significant than they are now.

So how do you do this?

You get enough sleep. You eat better and more natural food (vegetables, meat if you are into that etc.) instead of processed food. You exercise a couple of times a week in some way.

Doing this stuff has made quite the difference for me personally. Back when I started blogging in 2006 I was a bit overweight. I have probably lost 15-20 pounds of fat without that much effort since then. I have put on more muscle. I have more energy.

And working out is great because it’s a way to automatically become more positive. After the workout your body is buzzing with endorphins and growth hormones. You feel great. If you do this three times a week or so your mood will become a lot better – and more stable. Well, that’s at least what happened for me.

I made this change by:

• Regular exercise. For me it was in the form of lifting weights with a lot of compound movements like dead lifts in quick tempo two to three times a week.
  Portion control. I ate portions of natural and healthy food that simply weren’t so big as before.
• I stopped drinking soda.
• Whole grain products. I also switched to just eating whole grain products about a year ago. I think that has made a difference both for fat loss and energy stability during the day.

I still have maybe 10 pounds of fat to lose before I am lean as I’d like. And I feel like I can definitely raise my energy levels quite a bit higher.

So I have stepped up the cardio this year by adding bodyweight circuits a couple of time a week from The Turbulence Training program by Craig Ballantyne. Really good, quick and intense stuff. Another big upside is that I can do this at home with no equipment other than my body. So it’s quick and cheap. Which leaves me with pretty no excuse left to not do it.

By following the overall guidelines in the Turbulence Training program and monitoring what and how much I eat via the helpful and free Fitday.com I think I will lose those extra pounds of fat by the beginning of the summer.

I highly recommend that you take charge of this fundamental stuff if you haven’t already. It makes a big difference and makes your whole life a lot easier.

Being present.

Since this is The Positivity Blog you may have guessed that the other suggestion would be about improving your attitude. I thought about writing about it but felt that I just wanted to focus on two things in this article. And learning to be present is even more useful really. Plus, when you are present in this moment right now you naturally wind up in the positive part of the emotional scale most of the time anyway.

I wish I had started out with this one but it took me some time to even find about these things by reading books by Eckhart Tolle.

I think it’s good to start out early with this because it is quite hard to stay present and not be dragged back to “normal thinking” – by that I mean when you are thinking a lot about the future or past in some way – for longer periods. And because being present has several upsides that will solve or reduce some common and basic problems that you may have. Stuff like:

Positivity. As I already mentioned, when you are present you feel more positive because negative self-talk disappears or is greatly reduced. Most modern problems are to a large extent in the mind. If you can shut off negative self-talk and thoughts you naturally become a more positive guy/girl.

Less worry-warting and overthinking. If you are a chronic overthinker that goes round and round in circles in your mind before you ever get anything done then being present is a great release from that habit. I’m not saying that you won’t slip back into overthinking. But being present just for a while can help you. It can allow you to stop worrying about what may happen and just take some action to get started. To actually see what happens.

Coolness. You tend to become cooler when you are present. You don’t get bothered as easily by negative stuff happening. You don’t become so reactive anymore. You don’t create drama and make mountains out of molehills. You flow a bit more through life. You act in a way that may seem cooler and more confident on the outside. While on the inside you feel positive, calmer and more centered.

Easier to take action. Being present can actually help you with the first suggestion in this article. It makes it easier to go the gym or wherever you go to workout. It makes sit easier to do the workout. Presence makes stuff a lot easier to get done because now you aren’t creating so much resistance within.

Improved creativity. If you write or do some other creative work you may have found that your best work flows out of you when you are not thinking that much. You just write, paint and play. You enter a state where things just come to you. Then later you can come back and edit your work.

Improved social skills. Which seems kinda obvious if you look at the benefits above. When you are more positive, relaxed, cooler and more confident you are of course in a much better place socially than if you do the opposite. You become more likable. You become more attractive. You have more fun when interacting with people.

Also, when you are present you may discover that you don’t run into the dreaded “I don’t know what to say” problem that many of us have encountered. Instead funny and interesting stuff flows out of you naturally, just like when you are hanging out with your best friends. You express yourself authentically because you don’t censor yourself to protect some image you want to project. That’s why a thing like assuming rapport works so well, you are just being your natural self instead or of a false self that wants to seem cool or smart for example.

Personally, I still switch between being present and being back in “normal thinking” all the time. Some days I can stay present for pretty much the whole day, but that is still pretty rare. I find it quite easy to step into the now if I am not already there and to stay there pretty consistently for some time (a few hours). It’s a wonderful place to be in and act from.

My main tools for becoming present right now are these four:

Focusing on my breathing.

I take belly breaths for a minute or two. This is great way to calm down if you are nervous. By focusing only on the in- and out-breaths it is also a great way to reconnect with present moment again.

I see things as for the first time. I imagine it like that, I take that role.

Like someone who has never experienced this before. Like a child or someone who has never been here before. I like this one and I have been doing it from time to time for years (although back then I didn’t really understand why it felt nice when I did it).

Listening to Eckhart Tolle on my mp3-player.

I have few audiobooks by Eckhart Tolle on my mp3-player that I listen to a few hours a week. Books like Stillness Speaks and Even the Sun Will Die. This is very helpful to snap back into the present moment and also to remind myself about things I have forgotten. And to pick up things I missed before. It is often said that emotions are contagious. So is presence.

Using Paraliminals.

Since the middle of December last year I have been using guided mediation CDs called Paraliminals four to five times a week. One nice benefit of these CDs is that they put you in a very centred and calm state of mind with very little self-talk in general for maybe five hours to half a day after you have used them. This makes the transition into being present during that time a whole lot easier.

And that’s my two suggestions for where to start. With your energy and with your presence.

Now, what is your suggestion, where do you think would be a good place to start?

Note: This is a guest post by Diane Dutchin of Coaching Alive the Mind, Body & Spirit.

We’ve heard this statement a few times “time stands still for no man”. How true are those words. Time denotes our existence here on earth, the dash – between the dates of our birth to the last day of our life contains a personal history of who we were, how we lived, who we knew and what we did with our lives.

It is filled with memories of love, joy, laughter, pain, sorrow, anger, forgiveness, emotions all entertained, some internalized, some expressed, and some exploded.

In the midst of our living, time continues on its endless journey – time is a gift, though we rarely stop and acknowledge it as such. With every day time is equally allotted to everyone – 24 hours, and what we do with that time is totally up to us.

We can spend our time wisely, or worthlessly, we can squander it, or invest it, we can enjoy it, or abuse it, we can live it, or retreat from it, but it moves on regardless.

Time cannot be contained, only the memories caught within that time can be! With time we have the amazing ability to capture within our memory bank those moments that cause us to become embodied with adrenaline, love, passion, peace, and a revealing awareness of who we are as individuals.

As a result of what time allowed us to live, we can identify with what turns us on, and off. We then find ourselves gravitating towards events and people that will cause us to experience again, and again to what has awaken our being.

The analogy of the effective use of time is demonstrated by first placing large rocks firsts into a jar before adding pebbles, sand and water. This is simply to illustrate the representation of using time wisely by attending first to the most important tasks, and so forth.

Sometimes what is caught we’d like to forget, or have a chance to go back and redo, but we can’t because time does not stand still, and does not rewind. We can only learn from what transpired within that time, grow from it and move on.

Time does however; give us opportunities to make changes within ourselves that would empower us to be better human beings. To seek forgiveness for wrong we’ve incurred, and seek to forgive, to change how we see others, how we view ourselves, to add value and build our self-esteem, which will ultimately have a positive effect on those around us.

Time according to the Webster dictionary is defined as a period; it’s like a capsule of life being caught and preserved by actions and words of humans being that unfolds into what essentially makes up our lives.

Time cannot be seen; a clock simply is used as a gauge to keep us aware of what we need to do, and when we need to do it.

Within the sphere of time we have the ability to do whatever we want, but using time to be effective is time well spent. Unconsciously, we make the decision daily as to how we’re going to spend time, let’s spend it wisely creating memories that will benefit you and those you’ll touch.

Dealing with different aspects of time:

Important Time

Is the time we use to attend to the things that are of high importance in our live; like working to earn a living, filling the role as a parent, and partner. Paying bills, balancing our budget, attending school, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are all things that usually take up our important time. Prioritizing these tasks will add value to our lives, and leave us with a feeling of fulfillment at day’s end.

Interrupted Time

Are the things that creep into our day that are unexpected, like being delayed in traffic jam, missing the bus connection, and work load increase with other unfinished projects on the go are a few things that shows up in our lives that sometimes can send us back. Recognizing that some of the time interrupted issues are out of our control will help to ease elevation of stress, and we’ll be in a better frame of mind to come up with alternate ways to tackle the issue at hand.

Escape Time

Those moments when we simply need to get away from the daily grind, to step back, step away from the situation and clear our heads. Using times like these are very important to maintain sanity; especially when we find ourselves being short tempered on the job, snapping at others for no reason. Escape time is healthy when we’re in a relationship that is going sour with no hope of reconciliation – not that we’re running away, but simply stepping back to gather our thoughts together to make healthy choices.

Relaxing Time

The time we enjoy good food with great company, get caught up with what’s going on in the lives of our friends, vacationing, watching TV, reading a book, or participating in something that we enjoy doing. Setting aside time to relax is a must; hard work should be rewarded. Taking time to relax will reenergize the mind and body, and we’ll be able to reflect on what we’re grateful for; our jobs, loved ones, health, and whatever earthly possession we have, and sometimes take for granted.

Dream Time

Or what I like to refer to as “me time”. We should take time to dream, this allows our mind to reevaluate where we’re at in life, see what area needs work, and take note of how our dreams are being manifested, and those that we’ve allowed to die.

This will give us the opportunity to awaken that desire and bring that dream back to life. Dream time gives us that chance to self align and take stock of our life’s journey, and serves to remind us of what our desires are and take steps to live those dreams.

Action Time

This is where we take actions, make movement to execute those dreams, live those desires, and go after our goals. Write down what steps are needed to manifest those dreams, record our mission statement, goals, deadline and reasons why we’re going after that dream. Then implement it! There’s something powerful about walking out what the mind has processed.

Bed Time

This just may be one of the times we look forward to; especially when we’re spent from a hectic day. It is important to get at least 6-8 hours of restful sleep; this not only builds the immune system, but also gets us ready to handle what the new day will bring that requires the use of time.

We need to use the time we have now, to live in the now, to embrace good, to love ourselves unconditionally, to give life to others by showing we care, and by adding value to others.

Time is too precious of a gift to waste, so make the decision to use the time given to you wisely, and you will not only find fulfillment, but enjoyment in the process.

Diane Dutchin works part time as a Writer, Fitness and Lifestyle Coach based in Vancouver BC who blogs about fitness, encouraging, mind stimulating and life changing topics. Check out her work at Coaching Alive the Mind, Body & Spirit and 1-2-3 Fat Loss Solution.