We all want success, right? And we want it pretty much faster. We hate waiting for it. We develop strategies, road maps and blueprints to make it work.
We then create a working plan, put some hard work on it and work for success. This is pretty good. Achieving success is certainly cool. But what if you don’t achieve success even with your “perfect” blue print and hard work?
Not that you are “unable” to make it. You are able but still…. You know, there’s a missing piece! And that’s the topic of this post.
Take responsibility.
This may sound quite weird and even totally unrelated to success in personal and business life. But I want to tell you, in this post, that taking responsibility will take you to heights.
Let me discuss in more detail.
What is taking responsibility?
You know, if something goes wrong somewhere the first and the foremost thing we do by nature is to blame someone else (I’m not telling that YOU are doing it; most of us do it by nature).
We do not want to take the responsibility of that failure. But if it is a success, we’d be happy to get the credit for the same. That’s human nature; there’s nothing wrong about it.
But we are going to see how we can reap great benefits by simply taking responsibility for not only the good stuff that happens but also for the flops. Stick with me.
How to take responsibility?
This is one of the simplest things yet most people hesitate to do for many reasons. There are not many steps involved in the process. You simply have to make up your mind and take responsibility for whatever happens.
If something has seriously gone wrong with your work, just make up your mind and tell to yourself: “I am responsible for this“.
That’s it. Simple, right?
Yes, despite the fact that it sounds so simple, it is very hard to implement in reality. There are various factors that come in between – that’s human nature.
But let me highlight some of the awesome benefits of this small, yet crucial action of taking responsibility.
Get the situation under control
One of the most amazing benefits of taking responsibility is that you are able to get the situation under control. Usually when you start blaming others when something terribly goes wrong, you try to find a placeholder to put the current situation.
Given that the current situation is quite bad, trying to look a placeholder will only make things worse. In particular, if the blame game gets the form of a circle, where the other person or a group of persons are in turn blaming each other, things will really get bad.
On the contrary, if you step up and take charge in the first place, you also get the others involved in the event to respond in a cool state of mind, since you’ve already taken responsibility.
I’ve tried this many times.
When something goes terrible wrong and everyone in the team is blinking, I just “announce” before everyone that I am responsible for this. I usually say:
“ This is caused by me. I am responsible. I’ll see what I can do to get this back on track. Sorry guys!You know this is really powerful. Immediately after, everyone in the team will simply flow in and help me fix the flaws.
I am not “tricking” others here; I do so genuinely. But this is what happens every time I do this.
Improves my self esteem
Instead of showing myself as a “cheap” person who simply points fingers on the others, whenever I take responsibility I find that my self esteem and self respect are increased.
I also get a sense of satisfaction and “calmness” which is much needed in a crisis situation.
Rather than panicking and blaming others and exposing my bad side, this one seems to be a very legit and respected route.
Reduce the occurrence of crisis
This is one of the most powerful outcomes of taking responsibility. When you jump in and take responsibility of any event, you learn more about it. You understand what went wrong and what caused the crisis.
When you take responsibility, you get the thing on your shoulder, analyze it, find out the causes, ways to fix it, ways to prevent it from happening in the future and so on.
You get to understand the whole thing as if you have no other go.
This greatly reduces the chance of occurrence of a similar crisis in the future.
You see, taking responsibility develops into a more mature thing where you don’t just take responsibility in the end after something goes wrong, but will do so right from the beginning.
Before you start any project or any work, big or small, you always do the necessary measures to prevent any failures from the knowledge you gained from previous failures.
You may think, everyone can learn from their mistakes. Yes that’s true. But to learn, you have to first accept that it is “your” mistake. If you simply blame others, you end up ruining the possibility of learning from your mistakes.
Take responsibility: Takeaway
OK sometimes this thing gets too far and people ask me
“ Should I take responsibility if it rains outside and ruins everyone’s day?It is not like that.
My point here is different. Things happen. But usually, the damage caused by a crisis is much lesser than the damage caused because how you react to it.
And this will in turn greatly affect your personal and business success!
Please open up in the comments and let me know what you think about this whole thing of taking responsibility.
About Jane
Great post Jane! Taking responsibility is really challenging and nerve-wracking. This would mean taking a lot of efforts and making wise decisions.
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Another impelling share Jane . I could not agree more to it. Taking responsibility can inarguably make a big difference in life . I take happiness as a choice now and make sure that I make things work when they are not going my way .
Hi Jane,
This is an enchanting share!!! You have disseminated the great words of wisdom for mankind through this post. “Taking responsibility”, is indeed what is required to reduce the growing number of tensions and quarrels, instead of blaming others for the fiasco, if we start blaming ourselves and try to revive the situation, we can surely make a difference. The ways of becoming responsible are illustrated in the post with a great flair. Loved this post!! Thanks for the share.
I learned this lesson during the 1st six months of my job and every now and then I realize how important it actually is to take responsibility; honestly that is what sets me apart among elderly colleagues as well. My boss counts on me because he knows I won’t ignore my responsibility.
Jane,
I agree that in this day and age taking responsibility is something most people don’t do. I never thought about the fact that if you take responsibility that it keeps you in better control of the situation. Thank you for this informative post and I hope this will help inspire someone to have the courage to take responsibility.
David
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Taking responsibility can help us both in personal and professional life..Sitting doesnt help anytime..If we do something we should also be ready to take full responsiblity of it..Thanks for this insightful share, Jane.
When you’re sure of standing up to your mistakes, it makes getting solutions easy. If your blog isn’t working, find out why it isn’t then look for ways to fix it. Business or friendship? Whatever it is, when you look at the problem squarely in the face, you have reduced its threat by half. Then you can solve it, be glad about it and most importantly, grow in respect in the minds of friends and colleagues. Nice article Jane!
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I used to watch a show with Donnie Deutsch on entrepreneurs and one thing he often commented on was keeping a sign in his office that said the cavalry isn’t coming. You have to take personal responsibility because no one else will.
Apportioning blames is one character embedded with our system. No wonder we Africans continue to blame Europeans for our current financial situations even after more than 50 years of independence.
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