“You can’t escape tomorrow’s
responsibilities by evading it today.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Taking responsibility for your own actions and not wanting to pass or look to blame others for failures or misfortunes is often covered in conversations by many of the great entrepreneurs of today.
They will often say that without accepting responsibility you will not achieve success or at least find it very difficult to.
This can be hard for all of us when we feel let down by others or we have genuinely be unlucky because of circumstances out of our control.
However, the message from the likes of Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Jim Rohn and many others are that, until you accept responsibility for where you are today, the easier it will be for you to move forward.
5 behaviors that shows you are taking responsibility
- Accepting fault for being the cause of something that didn’t
- Consistent
- Not allowing emotion to take control of your decisions or actions.
- Being committed to doing exactly what you said you would
- Adjusting and compromising to changes that are
Accepting responsibility can be broken down into two basic compartments.
Personal responsibility
This involves taking ownership of your own behaviour and the consequences of that behaviour.
Until you accept responsibility for your actions or failures, it’ll be very difficult for you to develop self-respect or even receive the respect from others.
It’s a simple fact that we all as human beings and regardless of age, sex or experience, make mistakes and poor choices.
The same goes for when we fail to act when we know we should. There are times when we all look the other way when we know the right thing to do is to take helpful action.
So, you should first understand one thing – you’re not the first person (nor will you be the last) who has fallen short in the personal behaviour department from time to time. Just accept and it, learn from it and move on positively.
Indirect responsibility
It involves moving beyond yourself and taking action to help people or situations around you that call for assistance. While this component – indirect responsibility – may not rise to the level of personal responsibility, it does reveal something about your character and the type of person you are.
Clearly, there are many people who’ll walk right by the person who is down in the street, or down on his luck.
However, there are others—thank goodness–who’ll quickly stop and try to help. It’s not hard to determine which of these two actions is the most responsible choice.
The real difference between being responsible and being irresponsible is an indication of how effectively we’re managing our lives when the opportunity to make a good or bad choice presents itself.
Many people don’t realise that when you are accepting any kind of responsibility both personal and indirect responsibility is one of the most important factors in defining a person’s true character. When that responsible moment comes, what you do – or don’t do – is an indication of the type of person you really are.
Failing to accept personal responsibility may work to your advantage on occasion or maybe in the short term.
For example, you might get away with keeping your mouth shut about something that you’ve done, or even blaming someone else for your misdeeds.
You might not face consequences for your wrong actions, at least not at the time.
However – make no mistake about this – eventually this poor choice will catch up with you and, it’ll typically cause more pain for you down the road than if you’d stepped up and faced the situation, took responsibility for it and honestly said, “I did it”.
Consequences of failing to take responsibility
Over time, failing to accept responsibility has severe consequences. First and foremost, it has a devastating effect on your own mind and heart. When you know you have failed to take responsibility for something that you should, it’ll begin to bother you, to eat at you, little by little. Pretty soon, you’ll feel very small inside.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but
it’s the truth.
