THE BALD TRUTH - Personal Responsibilty

Personal Responsibility

“The devil made me do it.” How often do we hear this or a variation of this in today’s society? It may not even this blatant, but instead, may be more subtle. Let’s face it, we all make excuses for ourselves—excuses we would never make for other people. When I cut someone off in traffic, it was an honest mistake, but when someone else cuts me off in traffic, it is an affront to my honor right? Less and less often we are willing to take responsibility for our own actions, and it because easier and easier to blame something else or someone else for the things that we do.

It may have been a few years since you’ve last heard someone blame the devil for a choice they made. But you’ve probably seen those things replaced with other excuses. Remember hearing about the woman that sued McDonalds because she was so overweight from eating their food every day? Somehow, her choice to eat the food had become the restaurant’s fault. Of course, it’s not like McDonalds has any healthy options that she could have chosen, but it was still her choice to go to that restaurant, pick something off the menu, and then eat it. And yet, she blamed the fast food, not herself.

That’s not to say that all people are overweight because they eat fast food or even entirely because of choices that they make for themselves. But assigning blame, either to food or to genetics does not change reality and it does nothing to improve the situation. If you discover that you have a slow metabolism, one choice would be to blame that metabolism for causing you to gain weight. The other choice would be to take personal responsibility for things that you can control and learn to eat foods that will work with your metabolism.

This extends into every faction of society. Parents will blame other children or “the world” for the behavior of their children, when parents who take personal responsibility know full well that how children act is, largely, a result of how they are parented. As a society, we are refusing to act for ourselves, or refusing to acknowledge that the actions that we take have real consequences, especially if those consequences are negative. Instead, we choose to blame external forces for anything that goes wrong.

The good news is that taking personal responsibility is as easy as examining your actions and the consequences. Guess what, if you eat 3000 calories a day and do nothing but watch television, you will gain weight. If you ignore your children, they will probably throw a fit in public just to get some semblance of attention. Once we can take responsibility for the things that happen in our own lives, we can actually begin to change our mindset, our actions, and our entire lives. When we realize that we are in control, we can steer our lives towards something better.

Coach Rick Kolster, CBC is a certified business/life coach,  the author of the upcoming book Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get To Work as well as a public speaker on personal growth.. He can be contacted at 817-748-7425 or Rick@CoachRickKolster.com
www.CoachRickKolster.com