There are many factors that contribute to your life-long success.
How you manage your time, your self-talk, your perseverance over trials and failures, and so on – all of those are factors.
However, while all of these are important, there’s one key that I consider most important. In fact, your ability to follow this key affects your ability in all of the other factors. What is it?
The number one key to life-long success that precedes everything is that you have to take 100% full personal responsibility for your life.
You have to take 100% responsibility for everything that happens in your life. You have to take hold of the fact that where you are today is because of the choices you made before, and where you will be tomorrow is because of the choices you make today.
It’s not someone else’s fault. Where you are now is because of you.
There’s power in that.
Because, if you got to where you are now because of the choices you made in the past, it also means that you can change where you are by making different choices.
You may know the saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?” Well, the great truth of that statement is the reverse:
If we don’t like where we are going are where we are, then we can change it by doing something different.
And to do that, you have to take 100% personal responsibility for your life.
Too often we give up the power of self-responsibility
The principle of 100% responsibility sounds simple and basic; however, it’s not always easy, and many, many people live their lives in mediocrity and in not reaching their full potential because they don’t take responsibility.
It’s often easier to pass that responsibility to someone or something else.
So how do we pass on that responsibility? What traps and keeps us from taking responsibility?
The three biggies are blame, excuses, and complaining.
Blame
Many people lay blame for where they are at in life. They blame something or someone else for their level of wealth or their level of success or the conditions they are in.
They may blame the government and its policies, they may blame their parents and their upbringing, they may blame their spouse and their attitude, they may blame their boss and their arrogance.
They blame everyone and everything for the situations they are in and the state of life they are in except for the one person they should look at – themselves.
And that’s sad for multiple reasons.
For one, when you cast blame, you are surrendering your power, abilities, and life to the power of something or someone else. You are saying that they have control over you and that you are powerless.
When you say that someone “makes you angry”, you are saying that that person has complete control over you and you are powerless to do anything about it.
When you blame your boss for your unhappiness at work, you are submitting control of your happiness to your boss and saying you are powerless to do anything about it.
When you blame the government or your parents or certain circumstances for not reaching your dreams or goals, you are saying that you are a victim to them, that you are powerless, and that theirs is nothing you can do.
Too many people surrender their entire lives to the control of others – they are like a blade of grass, tossed by the wind, having no control over their lives.
And to be honest and straightforward: That is a miserable state to live in, having no control over anything in your life!
And here’s another danger of blame:
When we cast blame, when we always look outside of ourselves for the state we are in or the circumstances we caused, we don’t learn or grow.
When we constantly blame others for our mistakes, the negatives that happen in life, for our attitudes and how we react (such as in anger), we miss out on the opportunity to learn from those mistakes and situ