Take 100% Responsibility

Take 100% responsibility for your outcomes, for the outcomes of your life, for the outcomes of your job, your career, your finances.

Event + Response = Outcome

Are you ready now?

A great formula that I have come across to help with this is:

E + R = O

Event + Response = Outcome

The key area in the middle is Response.

There are 2 choices we have. We can blame the Event.

So we can say or tell ourselves

“Oh, it's raining, I can’t go for a run”

You can blame your family. You can blame me, your parents, your mum and dad. Oh, I know. I can blame my kids or my husband! We can always blame or find these excuses for this event but we don't always learn a lesson from blaming other people.

The option then is to review our response to that event. So, my response to the event is that I'm blaming my husband, I'm blaming my kids, I'm blaming the weather or just that the opportunity didn't arise.

My responses are all wrapped up in my excuses and of course that influences the outcome of what I want to achieve.

Knowing this formula, isn't a magic cure for the rest of your life. You always have the potential to step in and out. You have good days, bad days, good weeks, bad weeks. You just need that gentle prod to push you up again.

Jackie, if you point one finger at someone else, how many fingers are pointing back at you

This did happen to me recently! I was having a particularly bad time at work and I was blaming everyone else. I was busy. I was answering what I felt were silly questions that I shouldn't have had to answer and fixing mistakes that I shouldn’t have been doing. And it was everyone else's fault according to me. You can imagine how it was making me feel then.

I was stressed.

I was anxious.

And it wasn't my fault.

It was everyone else's fault and completely out of my control.

It got to the point where I put my hand up and asked for help. I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful lady that I can talk to - a mentor of my own. She helped me to come back down and get on top again.

This is the exercise that I did, and I found it really helpful to change that response and stop blaming the event and therefore changing the outcome to a more positive one.

Step One:

The first thing you can do is write down what is actually happening now – the reality. What are the feelings I was experiencing? What were the outcomes as a result?

Even writing that down made me feel better. It was like having a huge vent and releasing all of that frustration. You could start seeing things a lot clearer and all of the negativity was released.

Step Two:

The second step was to then write down what you want the outcome to look like, what you wanted it to feel like. So, flipping it essentially.

Write down what this perfect world is, what this perfect day is, what this perfect outcome is - how you want things to be and how you will feel. When you do this, you can already see how this will feel and it does seem achievable.

Step Three:

Looking at your perfect outcome, write down the actions that you need to take to move from the reality of now to that perfect outcome.

This is the stage that I’m up to now. I’ve written down my actions and I’m working my way through them – actually crossed quite a few of this morning! I’ve moved from flipping it on paper to flipping it in reality.

Doing these 3 steps has stopped me from being so cranky and from blaming others and things out of my control.

That’s what happens when you are blaming the event doesn’t it? You get cranky and it actually snowballs, the situation actually gets worse.

To help you with this exercise I’ve written down some questions that you can ask yourself if that helps?

1. What was I thinking?

2. What were my beliefs?

3. What did I say?

4. What did I not say?

5. What did I do to create that result?

6. What did I not do to create that result?

7. What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?

8. How did I get the other person to act that way?

Notice that last question? How did I get the other person to act that way? That's interesting isn’t it? See how it's flipping it back to you? This reminds me of something, a great boss of mine told me probably over 25 years ago. He’d always say “Jackie, if you point one finger at someone else, how many fingers are pointing back at you”. I’ve always remembered that!

A big takeaway from this exercise is that it will show you what is actually in your control to change the outcome. This is so powerful!

What to do now?

If you are currently at the stage of moving towards becoming an auditor, moving towards working for yourself as a contractor or consultant, and you're coming up with all of these excuses and feel this frustration, I urge you to follow this process.

What are the roadblocks?

Why aren't you getting there?

How is it making you feel?

Then flip it.

What does a perfect outcome look like for you?

What does you as an auditor, working for yourself as a contractor or a consultant, what does that look like?

And then write your actions to achieve this perfect outcome.

Be sure to contact us here at ATOL if you need help to move forward. I totally understand any feelings you might be having as I’ve had them too!

Remember that it’s not only you, it is common to feel nervous, anxious or frustrated. Remember that I’ve shared before about feeling physically sick before going to my first job.

I was so nervous I felt physically sick. I've been there and you're not alone.

We've all felt the same way, so let's do it together.