Own it: The Power of Taking Responsibility – Tags: behavioural, childhood patterns, empowering, hindsight, life lessons, personal growth, responsibility, self awareness, self growth, self improvement
Growth and personal freedom begin when we stop blaming and start owning.
Responsibility isn’t a burden — it’s your superpower.
Own your choices, own your power.
When you, like us, regularly visit social media sites, you will no doubt have seen posts that begin with:
“Hi, just after people’s thoughts…” or
“Am I overthinking this?”
“Someone [fill in name] hurt my feelings — but I am right, aren’t I?”
“It’s not about me, but…” [fill in]
Although most writers of posts are genuine in their quest for insight, they might have mixed feelings upon getting feedback. Some feel the need to add to their “Is it just me, or…” a justification of why someone else is entirely to blame for a row or a breakup.
In a relationship — friendship or romantic — breakup, there are two parties. Both parties, if they want to move away into a better future, need to acknowledge that it truly takes two to tango. Life isn’t black and white; there are even more than fifty shades of grey, and nothing is as straightforward as it may seem.
It’s so easy to act as judge and jury, but we should not: we never know the whole story, never know the impact it has on those involved. Of what went before.
In my experience, it turned out that in a sort of “goodbye” conversation between my ex and I, we both had a different view of the how and why of the breakup. My truth wasn’t his truth; what we perceive as truth is not objective when it relates to communication. One of the main reasons is the layering of the words uttered with the emotions behind them. We add substance and weight to what is spoken, and we are convinced the other party knows exactly what we mean.
It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves
– Sir Edmund Hillary
One way to solve this is to clearly share both words and feelings; to not layer emotions into “innocent” words and to always try to start from yourself when explaining. That means not saying, ‘You always do [fill in]’ but instead, ‘I feel [emotion] when I hear/see [fill in]’. That makes way for a truly two-way conversation without it ending in a “he said, she said”.
Most importantly, we need to grow, to move on. We need to assume control over, and responsibility for our behaviour. Take off the rosy sunglasses and look at ourselves, acknowledging the real reasons why a relationship went wrong.
This reminds me of some years ago, when a friend of mine had a call with a divorced man who wanted to date her. He tried to convince her that he was a victim: whatever had happened in his past, including the birth of his son, had nothing to do with him. He didn’t take responsibility for fathering a child, she “made” him. Yes, right? We’ll not go into the anatomy of the process here… Shockingly, this is someone who is unable to move on, let alone start a new relationship. His victim mentality prevents him from growing, from learning, from starting afresh with someone else. It will come as no surprise that my friend declined (and instead told him he needed to “grow up and take responsibility for his actions”).
The above demonstrates what we see too often: people laying the responsibility for their feelings at others’ feet. Why are we so eager to justify our behaviour, and have such difficulty in seeing ourselves wholly, with our flaws? Shouldn’t we try to overcome our flaws, grow through insight, and become a better, or at least a more resilient person? Why are we reluctant to see that situations result from choices we’ve made?
Realise that the choices made felt right at the time they were made — in hindsight, perhaps they might not. Hindsight is easy, seems unforgiving, so you have to forgive yourself and accept that when you made a certain decision, that was yours to do at that moment in life.
In the interesting essay, “Why do unpredictable events only seem predictable after they occur?” (The Decision Lab), it states:
We might judge ourselves harshly for failing to prepare for a situation that we “should have seen coming,” believing we tend to make poor choices due to our inherent inadequacy or incompetence. Research suggests that hindsight bias can also contribute to a “negative schema of the past,” where our knowledge base of past experiences is composed of negative outcomes believed to be foreseeable and inevitable, impacting our well-being and potentially playing a role in depression.
This explains why people have different recollections from a single situation.
Hindsight illuminates past motives, but it should not be used to taint the past or to provoke guilt. Understanding the reasons for acting as you did is the first step to finding closure, from within yourself. That way, you aren’t dependent on other people to close a chapter; understanding brings with it a sense of placement, of realising what happened, and in a way that is forgiving.
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
– Søren Kierkegaard
Closure allows you to give things from the past a place where you leave them without having them trouble you daily. Closure helps you to move on, to give yourself less weight to carry around with. Closure gives insight into the past, into yourself, and into what motivates you.
Using the insights to understand yourself and to grow, improve yourself, that’s what life is about. Not about keeping hanging on to a role you consider “imposed” on yourself, not about an unwillingness to take on responsibility for current behaviour.
Dr Jonice Webb’s article, “Got Issues? It’s All Your Parents’ Fault” goes to the core of what we are discussing in this article:
Focus upon understanding your parents’ effects upon you and taking accountability for your own decisions, mistakes and choices. Unless your parents were unloving, uncaring or abusive, blame is a useless concept. It is a road that takes you directly to nowhere. Blame is not healing and it is not helpful.
However, it is worthwhile to try to understand how your childhood affects you. Understanding is crucial to being able to have compassion for yourself and to conquering your adult struggles.
Once you see how your childhood affected you, you are freed up to hold yourself accountable as an adult. You, the adult, are responsible for your own decisions, mistakes, and choices. Own them. Be accountable for them. Learn from them, and move forward. No blame or guilt necessary.
Each and every human being has a childhood living within them, which has a profound effect upon who they are as an adult. Understanding your childhood does not absolve you of responsibility for your adult life. Instead, it frees you up to take responsibility for your adult life.
It feels so true to me. What I’ve been exercising after my life had upended — mindful to not use the word “was” as the life-changing moment was mine. What led up to it maybe not, but the decision to start my life anew in a different country (the UK) was and is mine. I own it.
This is also what I experienced when I was in my twenties. I had a flash of insight about my copying behaviour from my mother; behaviour I had no intention of copying. Choosing to address the issue, I asked a friend, and she confirmed I showed the same behaviour as my mother. The moment you realise you’re showing behaviour unlike your character, or the character you aspire to be, that moment is when responsibility for it goes from childhood-you to adult-you.
The steps to self-improvement:
- Insight and reflection
- Identifying behavioural and thinking/emotive patterns from childhood
- Move from childhood — powerless — you to adult — in control — you
- Take (over) responsibility for said patterns/behaviour
- Decide which patterns/behaviour belong to the person you strive to be
- Evolve, adapt, improve yourself to become a better you
Preferably, repeat steps four to six over and over — relating to any behaviour or patterns you feel are not part of who you want to be — striving to become the best version of you in your journey through life.
Things do not grow better; they remain as they are.
It is we who grow better, by the changes we make in ourselves.
– Swami Vivekananda
Thanks for reading!
Jon & Caz Cole
This article has also been posted on Medium.