PRINCIPLES FOR PERSONAL GROWTH, CHANGE, AND TRUE SUCCESS IN OUR LIFE AND SERVICE TO OTHERS

 

How to become all we can be and live at peace in our world.

 
Principle 2 - We need to assume full responsibility for our lives, our performance, our relationships, and how we respond to what happens to us.
 
       As a performance coach, we often say “We help people accept full responsibility for improving their personal and organizational performance.”  Fundamental to long-term success and peace of mind is the acceptance of responsibility for our performance and our relationships.  There is one commentator, who on a note of whimsy said, “Maturity comes when you realize that the cavalry isn’t.”  He means that we are only fully mature when we accept the possibility and embrace the opportunity that nobody will come to save us.  The cavalry is not coming; we are responsible for removing ourselves from our own situation, or improving the situation in which we find ourselves. 
 
        Years ago, the old stoic philosophers in Rome pointed out that we had to be fully in control of our lives and take charge of the destiny we desired.  Later on, the old romantic poem said, “I am the captain of my soul.” 
 
        All of this can lead to a certain rugged individualism that has no sense of responsibility to others or to a profound arrogance about our own possibilities.  That is not to be embraced; indeed, it is to be avoided.  But what this principle affirms is that we indeed must accept the responsibility for not only what comes our way, but what we make of what comes our way. 
 
        A strong point of order and emphasis should be made.  We do not mean by this that we are to blame for all of the things that we have received or that have come to us.  The universe is fully of tragedy, misfortune, and, there are circumstances that we do nothing to bring upon ourselves.  This principle does not believe that there is a certain karma to it all.  But what we do insist is that no matter what comes to us, we, through service to others, the affirmation of our own spirit, the language that we use, and the responsibility that we assume can create to a large extent the destinies that are before us.  We are not to blame for what we have received, but we are responsible for how we respond.  The motivational speaker is partly right when he says, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” 
 
        It has been noted that many men and women of times past sought a way to leave an endowment to the world and to others.  Today it seems that most people seek a way to get an entitlement from others.  We are overwhelmed with the amount of litigation in our culture that is symptomatic of the “I am a victim” mentality way of thinking.  We think we deserve something, and we have a right to something.  But what is true is that we only have the right to serve others and to create value for ourselves and others.
 
        It has been noted that the power of confession, which has long been lost both in religious and legal terms, is the powerful acceptance of moral responsibility.  To confess is to make us more of a human being, we are uplifted as men and women when we confess what we have done wrong and what we are responsible for.  It is the mark of the man or woman who bears with them moral responsibility.
 
        All of this comes down to one of the principles for effective and successful living.  We do not seek the salvation of our situation from any external source, nor do we ask others to make our situation better. We need to assume full responsibility for our lives, our performance, our relationships, and how we respond to what happens to us. To live otherwise is not to live as full human beings. 
 
 
Stan Hustad
PTM Group

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