You are 100% responsible

This last week a prospective coaching client asked me what is one powerful belief I live my life by.

Firstly, I must say, what an outstanding question to ask someone who you are considering employing to coach and guide you!

My answer: we are 100% responsible for exactly where we are right now in our life.

Just let that one land….

If you don’t like where you are, own the fact that you created where you are.

If you love where you are, celebrate the fact that you created where you are.

It really is that simple! Even if it’s somewhat painful for some of you to hear, including for the beautiful lady who asked me the question.

This is by far one of the most valuable principles of life, in my experience. If you are committed to success of any variety then I would predict you are most probably already living by this principle.

You are 100% responsible for your life: the amount of joy in it, the amount of abundance in it, the amount of successful relationships in it and how healthy, wealthy and wise you are.

The buck stops with YOU! Yep, YOU!

Jack Canfield, the highly successful author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series says, “Most of us have been conditioned to blame something outside of ourselves for the parts of our life we don’t like. We blame our parents, our bosses, our co-workers, our spouse, the weather, the economy, the government, our astrological chart, our lack of money – anyone or anything we can pin the blame on. We never want to look at where the real problem is – ourselves”

Blame is a fast track to mediocrity.

Firstly, because if you are not responsible for your life, then how can you be empowered to change your life?  By choosing blame, you are actually choosing slavery. You enslave yourself to the belief that you have no control over your life and therefore you accept the status quo.

Wayne Dyer, one of my favourite spiritual teachers said “Blame is a waste a time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you”.

That means nothing will change!!

Secondly, failures and things going wrong are a key part of success but if you don’t own those failings or things going wrong then you miss the opportunity to learn and grow. If you aren’t learning and growing, then you are not moving towards success but staying in the same pool of mediocrity that pisses you off each day!

I get that things go wrong in life and plans get messed up but remember, you ALWAYS have control over how you choose to respond (I wrote a blog on this very topic), the meaning you choose to give that event and what you do with the learning.

This principle isn’t about creating the “perfect” life where nothing ever goes wrong, this principle is about being empowered. When we take 100% responsibility for our choices, our results, our actions and our responses we are able to create a life that is truly fulfilling.

We become the Captains of our own ship and we can sail into the sunset of our choosing.