I. Take Responsibility We need to take responsibility for the changes we wish to see in the world

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Take responsibility: 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.

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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 choose to take responsibility in several ways, including taking ownership of our life, our experiences, our thoughts, our 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 life
• 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.

Credit: Viktor Frankl

Responsibility for our life

We can choose to take responsibility for our life.  No one else can do this for us. We are the only ones who can move our lives forward.

Taking Responsibility for Your Life | Oprah Winfrey

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 counter-intuitive 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 misfortune in life, such as an accident, then we give up our power to respond positively.

We can blame our parents, spouse, government, boss, or the car driver who knocked us down. There is no shortage of people to blame for any undesirable situation we find ourselves in.

These people may have caused 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 it does not, move on.

Responsibility 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.

Credit: Werner Erhard

The Impact of Taking Personal Responsibility | Werner Erhard

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.

Credit: Dina Marais

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.

Credit: Dalai Lama

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.

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.

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, a question to ask ourselves is, “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; just pretend things are around the other way. What insight does that give us?

Commitment

If we choose to take responsibility, we need to genuinely commit to taking ownership of whatever concerns us or we care about.

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.

Credit: Peter Block

Life has meaning with responsibility.

The more responsibility you take on the more meaning your life has.

Credit: Jordan B Peterson

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 to improve or fix it.

Many things in this world are wrong, unjust, broken, or in need of care. Some are large, some small, some close to home, and others 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?

Credit: Werner Erhard

See leadership as a practice, not as a position of authority

Leadership is a practice, not a position of authority | Ronald Heifetz (source)

Principles of Conversational Leadership

1. I. Take Responsibility We need to take responsibility for the changes we wish to see in the world
2. II. Embrace Complexity We need to understand complexity & its implications
3. III. Practice Leadership We need to practice leadership
4. IV. Leverage the Power of Conversation We need to improve our conversational skills
5. V. Nurture Community We need to care more about each other

Posts that link to this post

•  Take Some Responsibility We may wait forever for others to do so
•  We Have Two Purposes in Life A personal one and a societal one
•  Introduction: Conversational Leadership Conversational Leadership
•  We Need to Put Ourselves in Order Perhaps we will do the same for the world
•  Conversation Covenant Creating a psychologically safer space for difficult conversations
•  Ownership, Not Buy-in We need to move from buy-in to ownership
•  What Is Communityship? Where everyone in a community practices leadership
•  What Would Make a Better World? Many things
•  Caring We naturally take responsibility for the people and the things that we care about
•  Take Responsibility There are several ways in which to take more responsibility for our lives
•  Conversational Leadership Mindset Developing a Conversational Leadership mindset
•  Beyond Blame and Entitlement Taking responsibility for the world we create
•  Conclusion: Two Pillars of Truth Critical thinking - a civic duty

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Photo Credits: Patrick Tomasso (CC0 1.0)