The antidote for negativity is that you accept complete responsibility for your situation. The very act of taking responsibility short-circuits and cancels out any negative emotion that you may trigger.
By embracing responsibility you will reap many rewards. The successes brought by this attitude act as a foundation for self-respect, pride and confidence. Responsibility breeds competence and power. By living up to our promises and obligations, we win the trust of others.
Once we are seen as trustworthy, people will willingly work with us for our mutual gain. Making excuses can put the brakes on our progress, while accepting responsibility can lead us to succeed.
It is easy to blame others or circumstances for everything in our lives – past, present or future. It lets us off the hook to some degree. However, ultimately it doesn’t help us because we become a prisoner of circumstance and allow everything and everyone around us to dictate our world.
The workplace very often can breed a “blame culture” where everyone is looking for someone else to blame when things go wrong. Taking personal responsibility seems to challenge some people. Perhaps it is a fear of admitting mistakes which can be perceived by some as failing. However making mistakes is human and we can’t get everything right all the time. To increase your rate of success you will have to be willing to accept that you will make mistakes along the way, the skill is that you positively learn from them. Certainly some of the best learning and character building experiences have been on the back of big mistakes. As James Joyce so eloquently put it “Mistakes are the portals of discovery”.
Putting your hand in the air and saying “yes I recognise I made a mistake or I am responsible for that and this is what I am going to do to improve the situation” is actually quite liberating.
For example admitting when we get something wrong and saying I’m sorry can reduce a great deal of tension in any relationship. Humble pie can actually taste quite nice! It isn’t poisonous and there is a huge amount of respect for people who are brave enough to admit when they don’t get something right and have the humility to accept it, admit and then positively move on.
“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt