She Did Me Wrong But It Was All My Fault: A Lesson in Accountability.

Shaun Steez
Sep 5, 2018 · 4 min read

She cheated. She was untrustworthy. She was shady. I’ve pretty much written about all of the transgressions of my past relationships at some point so I won’t go into too many details. But just know that like all of us, I was in a pretty disastrous relationship before. But her wrongdoings are really none of my concern at this point. Anything she put me through doesn’t matter. It was all my fault as far as my concerned.

This mentality has stuck with me since our demise and has worked wonders not only in my personal life but in my professional life well. Once you master a certain kind of unwavering accountability, nobody can throw you off your game. You become completely in control of your environment.

I can say all types of things about my past relationships. My exes can also say all sorts of things about me too. In some cases I was in the wrong, in some cases I was right. I’ve been cheated on, lied on, lied to, taken for granted, used and drained. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t guilty of some of that myself. But for the sake of my own growth, reflecting on on the misdeeds of others is pretty pointless, no matter how egregious the offense(s) might be. When it’s time to reflect, I find it way more useful to look at what I did.

I would ask myself all sorts of shit.

She cheated on me. Why was she unhappy? She sent some pretty low blows at me. Could I have said anything differently or done anything differently?

This isn’t to beat myself up or wallow in regrets or sorrow. Nobody should beat themselves up over spilled milk. But you can ask yourself these things and hold yourself accountable for your own actions and you can only learn and grow from your own actions. It’s about cause, not effect. Assuming you were the cause. You can’t control how someone else responds to certain things. You can only control your responses and your actions as well as your actions going forward. I don’t care if they shot you. When you only focus on how you created the situation or reacted to the situation, you’ve master a level of accountability that most don’t even aspire to let alone reach.

This is ultimate accountability and once you master it you’re able to better navigate not only your love life, but your professional life and life in general.

You want to know the quickest way to get over a relationship? Grow and move on from it. I know this sounds over simplified and cliche, but it’s really the only way to getting the pressure off of yourself and moving forward healthy. This requires looking inward and serious reflection, no matter what the outcome of the past was and who was at fault. You can only control your actions. Other people are going to do whatever they want to do and you’ll never be able to control that. Learn to only spend time focusing on fixing and maintaining you and watch everything start to change for the better including who you attract.

This concept isn’t exclusive to relationships, it can apply to your business and professional life as well. That deal fell through due to someone’s misdeeds on the other end?. You were laid off due to your company’s financial woes.

In both of these situations, you were the innocent party on the surface and you may have truly not have been in the wrong. Still, you want to go back and figure out what you could have done better. Were there any stipulations I could’ve added to make the deal better for both sides? Is there anyway I could have made myself a non dispensable employee?

Again this is not to beat yourself up, but to make yourself better. The key is to not spend too much time looking back. When you do have brief reflections just make sure most of that reflection is self reflection. Accountability is the key to turning every loss into a win in the long run.

Shaun Steez

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I live. I write. I Tweet: @shaunsteez_ I do it for the 'Gram: @shaunsteez_

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