Letting go of blame and excuse
Letting go of blame and excuse
The two things blow my hair back most in life are:
a) How extraordinarily powerful people are. There are almost no limits to what we are capable of.
b) How much power most people give away and live as disempowered victims. I’m genuinely astounded at peoples capacity to just get by and survive, constantly complaining yet continuing to do the same old stuff they hate every single day!
The reason people give away their power is because often it’s easier to live without it. As Spiderman says “With great power comes great responsibility”
Often people simply opt for the safe approach to life. If they give away their power then nothing is their responsibility and nor is anything their fault.
Yet then all they are left with is blame and excuse!
Blame is fun
Blaming someone or something for your current results is so natural, easy and even a little bit enjoyable (if we're going to be really honest)
I mean it just makes so much sense to be angry at injustice and all the unfair, unfortunate, wrong, bad, mean, sad, rude things that have happened to you.
If only this hadn't happened...If only they hadn't done that...If only you hadn't been treated like that…If only...
You are totally within your rights to play the blame and excuse card again and again, because what happened to you is wrong and it is unfair and it shouldn't have happened and you did deserve better.
The only problem with blame is it leaves you powerless to change anything.
You become a disempowered victim waiting on the world to change.
Getting better results
The only way to get better results in your life is to take responsibility for them. Success in any area starts when we realise that your results are exactly that…your results. Letting go of blame and excuse and taking hold of 100% responsibility and choice is the only way to turn things around and improve the quality of your life.
Let go of the payoff
In order to take your power back, you have to be willing to let go of the payoff you got for giving it away in the first place.
Lot’s of people feel incredibly disempowered in life and that they have had their power taken away from them.
Yet interestingly personal power can never be stolen, it is only ever given away. The only reason we would give it away is if we get something valuable in return.
This thought is incredibly confronting I know, but also incredibly liberating at the same time, because it means we are not victims. We are exactly where we have chosen to be. Which means we could also make different choices.
The main pay off for giving away your power is that blame and excuse is far easier than embracing responsibility and choice. We get to play the victim and take the moral high ground. We get to point the finger and compare ourselves to those treating us poorly.
Take your power back
You can take your power back as long as you are willing to let go of the pay off you got for giving it away in the first place. It is so easy to believe that our life is affected and limited by all the things others do, and that we are victims of our environment, yet as Victor Frankyl declared to his Nazi captors from a German concentration camp – “You can take every single thing away from me, but you can NEVER take from me my ability to choose how I respond to you!”
When you take power back, then you also have to take 100% responsibility for your own results and your relationships, which is really hard!
The moment you are ready to do that you can step out of the victim mode of living and exercise personal power in your life again.
Tough questions:
Who or what are you blaming right now?
What excuse cards are you playing?
How's that working out for you?