Taking responsibility for your actions goes beyond just a declaration; it’s an ongoing and continuous calling to action that can improve your life and positively impact those in your life.
When I’m in the middle of a conversation, getting advice or being corrected, one way I respond is to say, “I have heard, I can do better, and I will,” for me, this is more than just a reply, a statement, or an apology, It’s a way of telling myself that I’m better than this and calling myself out to take responsibility for my actions and do better.
What Does It Mean To Take Responsibility For Your Actions?
Essentially, it’s about accepting your role in your life, both the good and the negative.
Instead of looking to find another person or thing to blame, acknowledge that you are the one responsible for the situation.
Sure, other people and factors have an influence, but you are the one responsible for your actions and all that happens within your control.
Being accountable for your actions requires accepting the responsibility of your mistakes, misjudgments, and errors, as well as your accomplishments and achievements.
It’s essential to know that there are two sides to this; it’s easy to concentrate on the negative aspects of being accountable for your actions, but it’s equally very important to acknowledge what you’re doing well.
This includes apologizing when you’ve done something wrong or even acknowledging why someone might expect an apology.
This means accepting that your actions could have brought you to your current situation, irrespective of whether you’re in love with it or not.
This also means celebrating yourself whenever you accomplish something amazing; make sure you acknowledge that impressive presentation you gave at work or in school, accept the responsibility, and take credit for the work you did; feel proud when you are successful at doing something.
It’s not all dark and despair; taking responsibility for your actions is also a way of showing yourself the respect that you deserve.
We’ve all heard various quotes about being responsible for your own happiness, and there’s plenty of truth to this.
When you take responsibility, stand, and acknowledge that your actions have consequences, you will be able to find ways to make the outcomes positive.
If you realize that you’re in control of your own life, you’ll find it much easier to start creating and maintaining your happiness.
Examples of Taking Responsibility for Your Actions
When you start to accept responsibility for your life, you’ll be doing things like this:
- Apologizing when you’ve offended or caused harm to someone.
- Admitting to mistakes without being asked
- Be honest about your mistakes and what you’ve learned from them.
- Listening to others’ feedback on what is and isn’t your responsibility.
- Talking openly about big wins at work and in your personal life.
- Graciously accepting praise and compliments on your achievements.
- You are aware and accountable for your part in an event.
- Don’t blame anyone else when you’re the one to blame.
- You don’t make excuses for why things are happening.
- Don’t transfer all the blame (or all of the failures) to your team or subordinates.
- If you continually miss deadlines or essential project parameters, you don’t pretend that it is all out of your control.
- If you notice that your team or employee is failing, you don’t just stick your head into the sand and continue to live in denial. Instead, you actively tackle the issue.
- In the event that your interpersonal relationships seem to be failing, you’re able to see how you’re contributing to (and possibly increasing) the conflicts and challenges.
Learning how to do it without too much anguish can have major benefits for your life in the long run.
Why Is It Important to Take Responsibility for Your Actions?
Accepting responsibility for your actions is essential when it comes to your relationships with family and friends and with yourself. Introspectively, acknowledging the impact of your actions and choices increases self-esteem, improves mental health, and creates confidence in your life. Assuming accountability in your relationships helps establish you as an authentic person that people can believe in.
Here are the biggest benefits you’ll get from taking responsibility for your own actions:
It helps improve your mental health.
Research has shown that developing personal responsibility positively contributes to well-being, self-esteem, and psychological health by empowering individuals to take ownership of behaviors and actions.
If you are accountable for your actions, you experience an increased sense of control rather than feeling like a victim of circumstance.
Responsibility for your actions requires being involved in resolving problems, not just waiting for situations to solve themselves.
It helps strengthen your relationships.
Consider your relationships; if you know someone who doesn’t admit to their mistakes or blames other people and keeps coming up with reasons for what they did, would that be the one you want to spend time with? Likely, the answer is not. This person could be viewed as a liar, untrustworthy, and undeveloped.
Responsibility for your actions is a crucial aspect of relationships. Taking this step shows your spouse, friend, and family members that you are capable and willing to be open and vulnerable.
This creates an environment where each person feels secure, vulnerable, and genuine, leading to relationships that are characterized by trust and openness.
Read More: What’s Platonic Relationship? It’s differences and how to make it work.
It enhances your ability to learn.
The relationship between personal accountability and the ability to learn has been extensively studied.
Research suggests that being accountable for the learning process is crucial for academic, personal, and professional development and achievement. Responsibility for one’s own study and learning is when students realize that they have an active part in their education and that their actions directly impact them and their classmates.
Being a successful learner requires going beyond what is taught to you in the classroom and proactively learning in and outside of the classroom. A strong learner is responsible for their education by taking an innate interest and by engaging in their learning.
You’ll gain a higher internal locus of control.
Internal locus of control is an emotional term that implies that the person believes they have control over their life instead of being controlled by external forces.
If you have a greater internal control system, it is more likely to see your accomplishments (and failures) due to the results of your own choices. If you have a greater external control system, You may think that your life isn’t in your control and that any failure or success you experience is due to fate or luck.
You develop a deeper understanding of who you are.
Taking responsibility for your actions demands a lot of self-reflection. It is essential to constantly evaluate what’s happening in your life and consider your role in the overall picture. Through this process, you’ll learn more about yourself and what you would like to achieve in life.
You’ll gain more ownership and freedom.
Accepting your responsibility allows you to be more in control of the results of your actions and the way you’ll act in the coming years. You don’t need to shy away from your mistakes or downplay your accomplishments. Instead, you take responsibility for them, take lessons from them, and apply these lessons to propel you forward.
Hard Truths to Help You Start Taking Responsibility For Your Actions
It takes work to take responsibility; the people who seem to make it appear easy have actually done the work and embraced some hard facts about life.
If you would like to join the ranks of them, here are some of the hard but truth-pills you’ll need to swallow to begin taking responsibility for your actions.
Life isn’t fair, and the universe doesn’t owe you anything.
At some point in your life, you’ll be confronted with a blatant injustice.
- You might not get into the college you’ve always wanted.
- You’ll get ghosted by someone you were kind.
- Betrayed by someone you trusted.
Everyone experiences it at various times and in different extents. When faced with injustice, it’s easy for resentment to take over your thoughts, but this type of negativity won’t help you get anywhere. The universe isn’t fair, and comparing yourself with others results in resentment and creates some distance between yourself and other people within your circle.
You may be the root cause of your biggest problems.
If you’re facing difficulties and challenges wherever you go, while life isn’t fair, if you’re experiencing negative trends throughout your day (like getting laid off, overdrawing your banking account, experiencing bad first dates, etc. ), It’s time to look into whether you are the cause of these problems.
No one wants to believe they’re the cause of problems in life. In reality, if you stop for a moment to look at a situation that is recurring, you might discover that the most significant obstacle on your path is you.
- Perhaps you’re always late for work due to being too tired from sleep.
- You might be spending too much money dining out when you could cook for yourself.
- Perhaps you discuss yourself a lot on first dates.
It can be hard to admit these flaws, but it’s impossible to make them better until you realize that they’re a contributing factor to your problems. When you accept this, you’ve taken the first step to paving the way to self-improvement and resolving your issues.
You need to work on your listening skills.
Self-reflection is a must in order to be accountable for your actions, but you should also be able to accept feedback from others and sympathize with the feelings of others.
It’s impossible to accomplish this feature if you aren’t a listener who is actively engaged and attentive in listening to other people (rather than thinking about what you would like to say next).
No one is coming to save you. You have to take action.
As children, we can easily feel that everything will be taken by the adults around us – parents, family members, teachers, and even kind strangers.
For many, stepping out of their comfort zone or comfort of their homes is a grueling wake-up call. When there’s no one there to help if you run out of money, get in trouble, or face a challenging situation.
This could lead to paralysis, an inability to move; you can sit and contemplate your issues, waiting for someone to appear and resolve the problem for you.
The truth is that no one is coming. It’s your job to be accountable and do something about it. If you don’t, you’ll remain in the same place.
Be aware that, at times, the act of taking action is asking your family, friends, or professionals for help. It may also involve researching solutions, confronting someone, or even being open and honest with yourself. Put in the effort, do the work, whatever it is, because, in time, no one is going to do it for you.
You can’t run away from guilt and shame (know the difference)
Shame and guilt play a role in how you accept responsibility for your actions. Although many people employ the terms to mean the same thing, there’s a significant distinction between them:
Here’s an illustration. Imagine you were cleaning the TV in your father’s house, and you accidentally broke it. This feels terrible, and depending on where you are in life, you’ll feel either guilt or shame.
The Shame Response: I’m such an idiot. I’m constantly dropping things, and my dad may hate me already for it.
Guilt Response: Ohh! I broke the TV because I was not paying close enough. I should be more aware when dealing with things such as this.
It could appear that these responses are both instances of accepting the blame, but the shame response places blame where it shouldn’t be. You are blaming who you are as a person, which has nothing to do with what happened. You are not stupid, and it’s highly unlikely your dad hates you for breaking the TV or other things.
Being embarrassed can also cause you to seek refuge away from the problem rather than confront it, but the guilt response acknowledges that actions contributed to the incident. It is possible to change the behavior and improve to keep you in the direction of becoming the person you would like to be and also loving the person you already are.
You won’t succeed without being kind, patient, and forgiving to yourself.
There’s been lots of hard-hitting in this piece, but I would like to conclude with this.
- The process of learning to accept responsibility can be challenging.
- You might feel shame despite your best efforts.
- You will have difficult conversations.
- You might lose trust before you gain it.
You must be gentle with yourself to overcome these trials and emerge with a positive outcome. Let yourself make mistakes and be proud that you are now owning up to them when you do.
If you repeat the same mistake again and again, despite having set your heart on fixing the issue, accept forgiveness; these things take time.
Patience and self-empathy will help you get there, and soon, you’ll be a master at taking responsibility for your life.
How To Start Taking Responsibility For Your Actions
Now that you understand how crucial it is for you to be accountable for your actions and life, how can you accomplish this?
Stop Blaming Others
First, it gets boring fast! Even those who love you can get bored of the constant blame game you play for issues that are within your control.
It’s also tiring; Shifting the blame makes you feel unsteady often, isn’t it? We can often tell that we’re putting the blame on another person, and this makes us feel sad and exhausted. It’s unfair to the person who you blame as well as unfair to you.
Stop Making Excuses
Similar to blaming others by making excuses, making excuses allows you to shrink responsibility for how a situation has turned out.
There are certain things that are beyond your control, but there’s much that is in your control as well.
You might not be on time to meet your acquaintance to eat dinner; instead of ranting about the congestion on your way, simply be honest and admit that you didn’t allow enough time or take into account the traffic jams during rush hour.
In order to avoid having to make excuses in the first place, think of ways that you can build contingency into your plans.
What’s your plan B? What do you need to do to prevent causing inconvenience to other people?
Don’t react, act.
When unpleasant or embarrassing situations occur, it’s normal for us first to react defensively. Sometimes, shifting blame, justifying ourselves, or avoiding negative feelings is easier. If we react to situations without considering the implications, the reaction will likely be defensive without solving the issue.
It is crucial to pause and act on the situation in a manner that is both calm and powerful. It isn’t easy to keep a clear mind when you are in the heat of the moment, but there are a few things that could be done to help bring yourself back to a peaceful state that will allow you to take a step forward:
- You can do an exercise that involves breathing.
- Go for a quick walk.
- Talk to a friend about the issue.
If you’re in a place where you are in a state of action instead of reacting, you will be better equipped to make well-informed and rational choices to correct the situation.
Stop Bemoaning Your Situation
Sure, you may feel stuck in certain ways; however, when all you do is discuss how bad it is, nothing much is going to change.
It is true that not everything is under your control, but in the instances where you can control it, you have to be prepared to accept it.
The act of moaning and complaining about your circumstances is similar to wavering a white flag while accepting that it is permanent. You are more powerful than you think.
Keep Your Word and Commitments
Did you mention that you would take action? Do it!!!
Be someone who is true to their word and whose promises are of value.
In the event that something important arises, you’ll explain to your partner the reason you’re unable to accomplish what you promised to do. However, these days should be rare, and the motivations for them should be legitimate and significant.
So, you can’t reschedule your dinner plans because of an unsatisfactory morning at work. The world should not come to a standstill so easily.
One of the most important aspects is knowing when NOT to make commitments that you will not be able to keep. Be honest and only say that you’ll do something if you really want to or intend to do it.
Know What You Really Want In Life
The most important part of taking responsibility for your own life is knowing the kind of life you want to live.
Sure, that can be hard to figure out at times, but it’s an approach you must strive to keep going through and repeat at least as often as required to establish honest and achievable goals for your future.
Take Action
Once you’ve identified what you would like to achieve in your life, you’ll be able to take actions that will bring you closer to achieving that goal.
The three points mentioned above:
- Blaming others
- Making excuses
- And bemoaning your situation
All have one thing in common: they don’t require any action.
Instead, if you have done something, failed to do something, or are just drifting through life, your next action is vitally important.
- Do you need to rectify a mistake?
- Do you need to apologize for not doing something?
- Do you need to set a course and do things to grow in life?
Taking action is crucial to taking on your responsibility for your life.
Accept negative emotions
You’ll encounter negative emotions at some points in your life, and accepting responsibility for your actions may cause feelings of guilt, insecurity, shame, or fear; these feelings can be challenging to manage, but it is crucial to recognize these feelings in order to progress.
Mindfulness training helps you sit with your negative feelings instead of trying to escape them. Avoiding uncomfortable feelings and emotions will only prolong it over the long run and make it harder to accept responsibility for our behavior and move forward.
Forgive Yourself When Things Go Wrong
You’re not perfect, and you’ll make mistakes; while it is crucial that you acknowledge these mistakes, it’s equally important to forgive yourself for them.
Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle these emotions is crucial.
Be gentle with yourself and know that mistakes don’t make you a bad person. In reality, mistakes can be experiences that can help you be more successful in the future if you can take the lessons and learn from them.
Break Your Bad Habit
Know that avoiding responsibility is as much a habit as it is a conscious decision. It’s a habit that you build and reinforce by repetition.
This can lead to accidentally pushing away the people you care about by blaming something on a loved one because you’re so used to pushing away responsibility; this can damage your relationships.
It’s crucial to remember that each little slip-up in responsibility adds up to create problems down the line, but breaking this habit begins by recognizing the problem and accepting it as it really is. When you’ve done this, you’ll become more aware of the times you’re doing it; it also lets you know when to stop your actions before you pull the trigger (or psychological) trigger.
Put It On Paper
It could be helpful to begin writing down your thoughts.
Our thoughts and emotions can be incredibly complicated and overwhelming, so it can be challenging to comprehend what’s happening. In some cases, we do not know that we’re not taking full responsibility for our actions since we’re not completely aware of the situation; if this is a familiar scenario, you’re in the right place to start the process.
- Write down what you feel about certain people or events.
- The group project you worked on that was not as you expected.
- Note down the role you took on and then evaluate the objective aspects of how you performed.
If you can honestly claim that your work was impeccable, good job. If not, think about the ways in which you could have assisted more or pushed yourself further.
By seeing these ideas written down, you’ll realize in your safe space that you have room to grow.
Feedback and constructive corrections from others could feel like a rude slap on the cheek, no matter how good intentions it might be. When you see things you’ve noticed about yourself, it will make you feel more at ease receiving feedback and taking responsibility for your actions.
Identify Triggers For Your Denial
What kinds of situations are most likely to lead you to run away from your responsibilities?
Do you have areas in your life that you frequently:
- Make excuses?
- Blame others?
- Or bemoaning your situation as referred to previously?
If you can identify situations where you are refusing to accept responsibility for your conduct, you can discover ways to think differently about them.
Maybe there are some individuals with whom you cannot accept any responsibility because doing so makes you feel inferior or incompetent.
No matter what, understanding the time, place, and why you choose not to accept responsibility for your own life and actions is crucial to tackling this problem.
Recognize Your Choices
Life is filled with options; there are moments when we have the option of taking one route or another.
Some options are huge, and others are smaller; however, it is crucial to understand that you are making the decision in one direction or the other.
Recognizing the wrong choices you’ve made might not be easy; sometimes, we don’t want to acknowledge there could have been an alternative we did not choose.
However, accepting that the choice has already been made and cannot be unmade goes a long way in coming to terms with it.
There are various options on your hands right now; you can choose a course that will help you rectify an issue, or you can opt for one that involves placing your head in the sand and criticizing yourself. Which option will you choose?
Read More: Being A Man Of Your Word
Read More: Entitlement mentality: No one owes you anything!
Read More: Real Men Don’t Cry: Reconstructing Stereotypes of Gender
Taking Responsibility | Quotes For Self-Reflection And Improvement
- “Take responsibility for your own happiness, never put it in other people’s hands.” – Roy T. Bennett Roy.
- “Liberty is a sign of accountability. This is the reason that most men fear this.” – George Bernard Shaw.
- “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” Jean-Paul Sartre.
- “And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.” – Kurt Vonnegut.
- “The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill.
- “A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case, he is justly accountable to them for the injury.” –John Stuart Mill.
- “It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one’s acts.” – Mahatma Gandhi.
- “Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.” – Ayn Rand.
- “Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.” –Friedrich Nietzsche.
- “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it or learn from it.” – Rafiki.
- “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are… it is our choices.” – Dumbledore.
- “Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” – Alfred, ‘Batman Begins.’
- “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
- “Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.” – George Washington Carver.
- “In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
- “We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” – George Bernard Shaw.
- “All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.” – Wayne Dyer.
Conclusion
If you are looking to live an enjoyable, healthy, and prosperous life, then you must take responsibility for your actions and life. Being accountable is not an event that happens once; it is essential to be accountable for every choice you make in your life, the things you decide to do, and the actions you decide not to take. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming about the best life; in fact, visualization is a powerful instrument, but unless you take responsibility and act to make it happen, your dream of a better life will be nothing more than a wish.
