In life, we can choose to take responsibility in several ways. Most critically, we can choose to take ownership of the changes we wish to see in the world.
Introduction
Taking responsibility is a crucial aspect of personal growth and development. It involves acknowledging that we have control over our lives and the power to influence our thoughts, emotions, and actions.
We can take responsibility in several ways, including taking ownership of our lives, experiences, thoughts, conversations, and even the changes we wish to see in the world.
By assuming responsibility for these aspects of our lives, we can become more accountable, resilient, and empowered individuals who can create positive change in our lives and the world around us.
Summarizing, we can take responsibility in several ways.
- Responsibility for our lives
- Responsibility for what happens to us in life
- Responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions
- Responsibility for our conversations
- Responsibility for one another
- Responsibility for the changes we wish to see in the world
The last of human freedoms — the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.
Responsibility for our lives
We can choose to take responsibility for our lives. No one else can do this for us. We are the only ones who can move our lives forward.
Responsibility for what happens to us in life
The idea that we can choose to take responsibility for what happens to us in life is counterintuitive and controversial. Put simply, it means, “We can choose to consider ourselves responsible for whatever happens to us in life, even if it is not true.”
It is not about the truth, right or wrong, or blame. It is about taking a position of power.
If we consider ourselves victims of a clear wrong done to us or a misfortune in life, such as an accident, then we relinquish our power to respond positively.
We can blame our parents, spouse, government, boss, or the driver who hit us. There is no shortage of people to blame for any undesirable situation we find ourselves in.
These individuals may have contributed to our situation; blaming them, however, does not help. It confirms us as a victim. The position of power, however, is to take responsibility for the circumstances.
This unusual perspective may help you or may annoy and infuriate you. If it helps, take the advice; if not, move on.
The Impact of Taking Personal Responsibility | Werner ErhardResponsibility begins with the willingness to take the stand that one is cause in the matter of one’s life. It is a declaration not an assertion, that is, it is a context from which one chooses to live.
Responsibility is not burden, fault, praise, blame, credit, shame or guilt. In responsibility, there is no evaluation of good or bad, right or wrong.
There is simply what’s so, and the stand you choose to take on what’s so.
Being responsible starts with the willingness to deal with a situation from the view of life that you are the generator of what you do, what you have and what you are.
That is not the truth. It is a place to stand. No one can make you responsible, nor can you impose responsibility on another.
It is a grace you give yourself – an empowering context that leaves you with a say in the matter of life.
Although stripped of freedom and dignity, Frankl recognized that he still had a choice: to succumb to despair or find meaning and purpose even in this bleak environment. Rather than bemoan his fate, he looked for ways to lift the spirits of fellow prisoners. He believed life has meaning under any circumstance, even in the face of evil.
Frankl realized that while he could not control the inhumane conditions, he had power over his inner life. Instead of letting his captors dehumanize him, he resisted by finding opportunities to help where he could. With compassion, he comforted those who were losing hope.
By taking responsibility for his response to unimaginable cruelty, Frankl proved the strength and resilience of the human spirit. His example is a testament to the freedom we all have – to choose our attitude, even in the worst of times. Hardship becomes more bearable when we embrace life and live it with purpose.
Responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions
We can choose to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions
- Thoughts: no one can make us think bad things
- Feelings: no one can make us angry or depressed
- Words: no one can make us say hurtful things
- Actions: no one can make us do bad things
We alone are responsible.
Take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.
To take responsibility for your life is to take responsibility for your powers of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting, because this is the structure of all human experience. You create your life with your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.
You take responsibility when you accept that the thoughts you have, are your thoughts coming from your mind. How you feel happens in your body and is a result of your thoughts. The words you speak come from your mouth and voice. The actions you take, are taken by you.
What this means is that nobody can make you think, feel, say or do anything. Nobody can push your buttons, because you are the button maker! In the same way, you don’t have control over how other people respond as they respond from their mindset.
Responsibility for our conversations
We can choose to take responsibility for conveying the conversations we need and the quality of those conversations.
Responsibility for each other
I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance.
People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction.
Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood.
We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.
Responsibility for the changes we wish to see in the world
We can choose to take responsibility for the changes we want to see in the world, whether in our jobs, personal lives, or society. If we don’t, we may wait forever for others to do this, so we must take responsibility if we are serious about change.
I differentiate the words in a way that may not be universally agreed upon.
It can be summed up as
We take responsibility but are held accountable.
Responsibility is something you feel personally, while accountability is something others hold to you.
It is far too easy to take no responsibility and blame other people for the things we don’t like, the things we don’t agree with, the failures we see, or the lack of change for the better.
We blame our partner; we blame our boss; we blame our parents; we blame politicians; we blame the bankers; we blame the rich; we blame the poor; we blame the immigrants.
We blame others for all of the troubles in the world, and they, in turn, blame us. So much blame, blame that achieves nothing.
It is easy to blame others and deny responsibility for almost everything, including our actions, but we have the freedom to choose to take responsibility.
Authority vs Responsibility | Seth Godin (source)Reversing cause and effect
Are we the cause of the problems we blame others for? Maybe we need to stop thinking of ourselves as the outcome of something done to us, i.e., the effect, and start to think of ourselves as the cause of what is happening.
So, in any situation, we should ask ourselves, “What is the cause, and what is the effect?” “Which way round is it?” What would it mean if our way of seeing a situation were reversed?
Peter Block says it does not matter if the reversal of cause and effect is true, but asking ourselves which form of thinking is the most useful gives us the most insight and power. So, in any situation, we don’t have to believe it; we have to pretend things are the other way around. What insight does that give us?
But what if it’s the other way around? What if, in some way, you are causing this situation? Maybe how you present your ideas doesn’t make them compelling or easy to act on. Perhaps you assume your manager won’t listen, so you hold back or don’t push forward assertively enough. Maybe you don’t frame your ideas in a way that aligns with what matters to them. Or it could be that your frustration has led you to shut down, reinforcing the very dynamic that makes you feel unheard.
Even if this reversal isn’t entirely true, it shifts your perspective. Instead of blaming an external force, you look at what’s within your control. That shift alone can be enough to change how you engage, and in turn, how your manager responds.
Commitment
If we choose to take responsibility, we must genuinely commit to taking ownership of whatever concerns us or matters to us.
The power to create a future requires us to choose to be accountable.
To be accountable, among other things, means you act as an owner and part creator of whatever it is that you wish to improve.
In the absence of this, you are in the position of effect, not cause ... a powerless stance.
To be accountable is to care for the well being of the whole and act as if this well being is in our hands and hearts to create.
This kind of accountability is created through the conversations we have with each other.
Life has meaning with responsibility
Responsibility | Jordan Peterson (source)Life has meaning with responsibility.
The more responsibility you take on the more meaning your life has.
Take action – make a difference
There is so much that we can do to improve the world. Find something wrong, find something unjust, find something broken. Still, more than anything else, we need to find something we care about and feel passionate about within our sphere of influence, and take responsibility for improving or fixing it.
Many things in this world are wrong, unjust, broken, or in need of care. Some are large, some are small, some are close to home, and others are distant. Some are outside our circle of influence, and some are within it.
We need to pick something we can do within our circle of influence and take responsibility for it. It could be a personal issue, a work issue, or a societal one.
We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the world what our lives are really about.
Each of us has the opportunity, the privilege, to make a difference in creating a world that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart.
It is much more radical than a revolution – it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. What we create together is a relationship in which our work can show up as making a difference in people’s lives.
I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings. If not you, who? If not now, when? If not here, where?
See leadership as a practice, not as a position of authority
Leadership is a practice, not a position of authority | Ronald Heifetz (source)Posts that link to this post
- Care ** We naturally take responsibility for the people and the things that we care about
- Conclusion: Two Pillars of Truth Critical thinking - a civic duty
- Conversation Covenant Creating a psychologically safer space for difficult conversations
- Conversational Leadership Mindset Developing a Conversational Leadership mindset
- Frequently Asked Questions About Conversational Leadership Conversational Leadership: Key points and myths
- Interaction as the Primary Unit of Change Is not the individual, it’s the interaction
- Introduction: Conversational Leadership Conversational Leadership
- Ownership, Not Buy-in We need to move from buy-in to ownership
- Take Responsibility A Conversational Leadership Practice Area
- What Is Communityship? Where everyone in a community practices leadership
- What Would Make a Better World? Many things
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Tags: accountability (16) | better world (45) | blame (2) | care (31) | cause and effect (6) | circle of influence (8) | commitment (14) | human nature (4) | Jordan B Peterson (19) | meaning (13) | Oprah Winfrey (3) | ownership (12) | Peter Block (39) | responsibility (58) | Seth Godin (11) | Werner Erhard (3)
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In-person, 7–11 September 2026
Warbrook House, Hampshire, UK
We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. This week-long workshop with David Gurteen and John Hovell offers a space to practise Conversational Leadership as a shared, lived experience.
David, there is a misprint on section “RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR CONVERSATIONS”: there should be “the” instead of “te” in the phrase “…and te quality of those conversations.”
Tank you. I’ve corrected the typo. best wishes David