Responsibility starts with you

Responsibility breeds response-ability — Stephen R Covey

Living life by continuously passing the buck for your own actions depicts signs of insecurity, emotional weakness and low self-esteem. Your actions and decisions resonate in one space, a space that only you can enter and co-exist.

We are exposed to a myriad of choices and our entire experience is influenced and shaped by those choices. There are two major choices that would always sit on your doorsteps – one that says you can choose to be the creator of your own destiny, finding solutions and taking appropriate action. The other says you can choose to be victims of your own world, blaming and casting aspersions to suit your fancy. Blame and guilt were designed as the evaders of responsibility and ultimately, result in individuals unwilling to act objectively and dispassionately in treating with issues.

According to US-based licensed professional counsellor, Jennifer Slingerland-Ryan, “taking responsibility of our own thoughts, emotions and actions is empowering; it means we are able to step back from a situation and view it from a different perspective, we’re able to look beyond ourselves and see an alternative way of thinking.”

Accepting responsibility begins with doing some very basic things such as withholding personal information about your life which is best kept private; using strong security measures to protect your internet accounts and exercising extreme caution in determining who you accept into your private emotional dining room.

No human being is perfect and therefore mistakes are inevitable, but the more important thing is taking ownership of the said mistakes and ensure as best as possible not to repeat. There are two sides of accepting responsibility – the first is taking full ownership of your choices, behaviour and the associated consequences; non-acceptance would result in lack of self-respect as well as respect for others.

The second element involves indirect responsibility which goes a step further in taking action to assist others and/or situations around you that require assistance; this may not seem personal, but your response to such situations characterises who you are and how others respond to you. Individuals who continuously blame others and/or the environment for the outcomes of their actions rarely succeed as their lens would always be blurred.

Personal responsibility equates to personal power in shaping appropriate outcomes; you also create a frame of mind that disallows negativity and excuses all associated with the blame-game. Accepting responsibility also opens doors to effectively treat with the outcomes whether positive or negative; you would also become an enabler of your own solutions.

Adriana Sandrine Rattan is a communications and branding consultant, author, empowerment builder and president of the International Women’s Resource Network (IWRN) Contact: thecorporatesuitett@gmail.com or intlwomensresourcenetwork@gmail.com; https://www.facebook.com/IWRN1.