Are you limiting your life by complaining, blaming and making excuses?
Playing the blame game may stop you from feeling any guilt or responsibility. But it also stops you from taking action. Toxic behaviours like complaining and making excuses, don’t encourage growth, they prevent it. As with everything, that may be easier said than done right? Not true! Here are my simple tips to eliminate blame from your life for good!
“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change” ~ Katharine Hepburn
History has taught us that the most successful people don’t waste their time or energy assigning blame. Instead, they analyse the problem and work out how they can improve.
Take the life of famous novelist Charles Dickens for example. A tough upbringing and lack of education wasn’t enough to stop Dickens from becoming one of the most famed novelists ever. He went on to achieve great fame and wealth as one of the 19th century’s literary masters.
Here’s some more examples:
- Walt Disney’s road to success wasn’t easy by any means, he was fired from his first newspaper job, where he worked as a cartoonist for not being creative enough and lacking imagination, oh the irony, find me a person who doesn’t know who Mickey Mouse is. He eventually created one of the most famous cartoons of all time, and left behind one of the greatest legacies known to man i.e. The Disney Franchise
- Born to unwed teen parents, Oprah Winfrey was forced to wear dresses made out of potato sacks. She eventually got a scholarship to college and is now worth $2.7 billion
- Similar to Oprah, Howard Schultz wasn’t born into wealth. He worked hard and eventually received a scholarship to study communications. Whilst working at Xerox he discovered a small coffee shop, Starbucks. He left Xerox, and became Starbucks first CEO, opened 16,000 stores worldwide, and is now worth $1.5 billion
The point I’m making is that these people didn’t succeed by making excuses for their disadvantages. They chose to focus their time and energy on ways to better themselves.
Pointing the finger for all of your problems is easy to do. I’ve heard every excuse under the sun…
- I’m not intelligent.
- I’m uneducated.
- I’m too old.
- I’m too young.
- I’m not healthy.
- I’m not lucky.
- I don’t have enough money.
- And so on…
Instead of wasting your energy complaining, focus on what you can change. When you accept and understand that complaining only delays your growth, you’ll take control of your life,and you’ll start seeing real, positive changes.
Remember, complaining is a habit that’s learned, therefore it’s a habit that can be unlearned too.
I’m not trying to trivialise the problems you may have faced personally or say that they’re your fault, I’m just trying to get you to approach them in a different way…because as the saying goes ‘life is a roller coaster’ and we’ll all face challenges at one point or another. What I want you to take away from this, is it’s how you react to adversity that really matters. And focusing on solutions to solve or avoid a problem in the future, is what separates success from failure.
Taking responsibility means refusing to let those problems prevent you from accomplishing your goals. It’s what opens up doors and opportunities…it’s how you go from being born into nothing to becoming a billionaire!
Looking back, I can’t believe how burdened I’ve been by playing the blame game myself. And more importantly, how quickly things started to change for the better when I started taking accountability. For example, I let my excuses be the reason I didn’t strive for a better job. But once I I took responsibility and got out of my own way I improved my circumstances almost instantly, and now I have a job I love that pays me well.
After that, I stopped letting excuses get in the way of anything I put my mind to. By taking responsibility I was able to shift my focus on ways to solve my problems and accomplish my goals. And it’s been one of the most productive things I’ve ever done.
“Concern yourself more with accepting responsibility than with assigning blame. Let the possibilities inspire you more than the obstacles discourage you” ~ Ralph Marston
Let’s take a moment to do some self-reflection. There is a fine line between these self-reviews I speak of and self-attack. Sometimes you’ll find you could have done things differently and sometimes you won’t. It’s important to always be constructive, positive and optimistic with these reviews i.e. find ways to grow instead of ways to attack yourself.
Take a moment to think about a time recently when you were complaining about something. Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
- Every excuse prevents accomplishments.
- Don’t make excuses, make changes.
- Taking action is easier when you take responsibility.
- Focus your time and energy on solutions, not blaming/complaining.
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