Taking the Reins: How Accepting Responsibility Can Transform Your Life
You can’t change before letting go of the past and taking full responsibility for the now!
While Iman Gadzi was still seventeen, he woke up one day and decided to be responsible for everything in his life from that day on. Interestingly, ninety days after that decision and while he was still seventeen years old he had reached an income of fifteen thousand dollars a month.
As he says, nothing had changed for him, but only his mentality toward his actions had changed, and that decision made him successful.
Most of us blame others when we look at our failures in life. We humans usually do not like to blame ourselves. That’s why the brain is called a justification machine. Such justifications may have been vital in the cave-dwelling period to avoid rejection from one’s tribe, a punishment which at that time led to death. But in today’s age, when lives are individualized, such justifications are no longer critical.
We have always heard that to live a different life, you must become a different person, but the important part not being practiced here is leaving the past behind. A past that will continue to haunt you and hinder your progress until you get rid of it. Past events are like open files inside a computer’s memory, which at least slows it down.
Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else. — Les Brown
But getting rid of the past is a question everyone asks, and sometimes, they complicate the answer for themselves and others. The most important reason can be their lack of full responsibility.
The Ultimate Solution:
By taking all the responsibility for past failures, you draw a line between your past and your future. Drawing this line can be a turning point in your life because, from now on, you will have a clearer view of your life. You know that you are standing behind the helm of your life ship and not others. This sense of responsibility makes a person more rational in future decisions.
There is only one way to get rid of the past: to accept the blame for all past failures. Tom Bilyo said in a podcast that his life has changed since he decided to blame himself for his past. Those two people’s lives (Iman Gadzi and Tom Bilyo) have been revolutionary after these decisions. Their lives have changed, and they have gone from zero to millions of dollars to the point where each name shines like a brand today.
Such a solution may not seem logical at first because there have undoubtedly been events imposed on you by others, but this is the primary condition for you to calm down and clarify the path in the future.
By taking responsibility for your past, you will be free from thinking about others who you think have brought these troubles to you, and by taking responsibility for your present life, you use your maximum capacity in the circle of authority you have for progress.
Tomorrow, you are the one who decides to wake up early in the morning and have a regular morning routine or to sleep until eleven in the morning, and even after you wake up, you waste at least half an hour of your time on your smartphone. If you want to wake up early tomorrow morning, you should first go to bed early and put your phone away after 8 pm.
With a bit of thought about your early morning awakening, you realize that you have to decide to go to bed early to wake up early. It would be foolish for you to blame social media and their company owners for your failures in life and complain against them in a few years.
You can skip the instant gratifications as long as you accept the overall responsibility of your life, and this is not possible except by sacrificing your own time, attention, and resources.
What you are doing now will determine your future just as your past actions have determined your present state.
Let’s consider ourselves responsible for all the successes and failures in our lives for at least one month and take the helm of our lives (in the things and actions within our control). By doing this, we will be relieved from regretting and blaming others and understand how much time, resources, and opportunities we have for change and improvement. That will give you a new mindset that, with a bit of persistence, you will see excellent results.
