Monday, September 20, 2010

Responsibility 101

People waste more time waiting for someone to take charge of their lives than they do in any other pursuit.

Gloria Steinem

I’ve Been Thinking. . . about the relevance of a very old movie. Grab your TV Guide. Oh, that’s right, they quit making TV Guide. Okay, go to your local cable listing and hope you can find the next showing of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.

There’s a scene where an angry German soldier in a hospital ward smashes a bottle against the wall. An officer quickly comes storming into the room demanding to know who threw the bottle. “I did,” said Joseph Hamacher, even though he had nothing to do with the incident.

The angry officer takes down Hamacher’s name, informs him he’s in big trouble and then stamps out of the room. The other soldiers are curious. Why did Hamacher take the heat when he didn’t commit the crime? Hamacher grins and explains, “I got a crack in the head, and they presented me with a certificate to say that I was periodically not responsible for my actions. Ever since then I’ve had a grand time!”

Sound familiar? There are a lot of people walking around today declaring themselves temporarily not responsible for their actions.

Relinquish responsibility to someone else or an event and you become powerless as well as angry and resentful. Grant someone or something responsibility for the quality of your day and be assured the results will be undesirable. You’ll soon believe that you have no control over what happens to you. This is the fast track to becoming a helpless victim of the past, other people and life. Trapped.

When you consciously take responsibility for the outcomes in your life new possibilities and alternatives will surface. Responsible people see no reason to blame others or the world around them for how they feel, think, or act. Their approach is to face the facts, meet challenges, decide how to make changes, and actively plan how they will make a difference in their future.

Two questions will assist you in making this transition. What do I want? What am I willing to do to make it happen?

You possess all the necessary tools to determine what activities and thoughts to activate. Being clear about what you want and how you will achieve it provides fresh insight into desirable behaviors.

“Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility,” says Michael Korda. “In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have...is the ability to take on responsibility.”

Formulate a course of action to focus on who you want to be and how you want to feel.

“If you’re tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you.”

Zig Ziglar