Mistakes were made but never by me

I stumbled upon this the other day, and it really hit home. I thought it was worth sharing:

"The victim sees himself or herself as acted on by outside forces. They say things like: “He didn’t give me the job. She’s unfair. I’m depressed because the weather is terrible. My boss is an idiot. I can’t put in good work when management doesn’t support me. I’m getting bad grades because the professor hates me.” And so on.

There are two problems with this way of thinking. The first is that it disempowers a person from being able to change anything. The second is that it’s incredibly unpleasant and unenjoyable for other people to listen to.

Radical personal responsibility looks at it in a different way. It’s a near-delusional worldview in which everything—from the idiot boss, to the hateful professor, and even the depressing weather—is your responsibility.

To take an extreme example—if it’s a miserably cold winter and you hate it, you think, “It’s on me that it’s miserably cold out.”

Now, it’s absurd to try to assert control over the weather. But once you assert a radical personal responsibility over the situation, you start to think things like—“Ok, it’s my responsibility to deal with this. What can I do? Hmm. I can get much warmer and more waterproof clothing. Or I could move closer to the train station so I don’t have to walk in the cold as much. Or I could move somewhere else. Or I could learn to not be so bothered by it and appreciate the winter world around me more.”

Asserting personal responsibility to a radical extent creates options, but more importantly, it’s almost always appreciated. Your boss might well be the biggest idiot on the planet, but if you thrive anyways and become a top producer in spite of it, your name will inevitably be on the lips of anyone talented at the company as someone to watch and a first candidate to recruit away from the company or promote. And you learn the skills of producing and stacking up wins, which is useful for your own development.

Learning how to negotiate and understand unreasonable people, like a potentially unfair professor, goes a long way too. Many people throw their hands up, complain, and accept their lot. But taking charge and taking responsibility means doing everything you can to mediate the situation, and you’ll learn a lot from it. If the professor was genuinely corrupt—say, marking down anyone who refused to pay the professor money for grades—perhaps you’d be the person to de-throne that corruption and bring it to the attention of the authorities. Radical personal responsibility creates options. 

Most people complain to feel better about themselves and accept their lot; you don’t."