Take Exactly 100% Responsibility: no more, no less
We kid ourselves, sometimes.
We kid ourselves that we have the complete control over our lives that the rational human should have.
That through being smart and working hard we can hustle our way anywhere we want.
A twist of fate will quickly teach you that isn't the case.
And we kid ourselves, sometimes.
We abdicate responsibility, seeing the tides that change the world rising or falling and believing ourselves inconsequential in the flows of our lives.
If we live our lives, awake and paying attention, then in the end we see life isn't as simple as either of those stories and we can't kid ourselves any more.
The third story, the path that created a mental model that more closely reflects the complexity of the world is something like what Kim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Klemp invite in their book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: take 100% responsibility.
No less than 100%. We all know what that looks like- the people who blame everyone else for their misfortune and poor work.
But no more than 100% either. Taking more than your fair share of the responsibility and blame is just as toxic as taking too little.
It holds others back from stepping up or from seeing the truth.
And it can drive you down into the exhaustion and burnout that will remove you as a player from the game of life.
Yes, you are an incredible creature - a human being - capable of taking control in your life like nothing else in the known universe. Capable - sometimes - of resisting your evolution and your conditioning and choosing something new.
Capable of changing the course of the universe by an act of will.
Capable of impacting what happens.
And, you are tiny.
Infinitesmally small in the universe.
A speck on the ocean of the forces you are dealing with.
What are you compared to the shifts in the planetary system?
What are you in the torrent of the forces of fear or sexuality or growth or illness or love?
Think you've got those under control?
I wish you did. I hope you can believe that
But even if you can, then someday soon, one of those forces will come calling and you'll look back on the little innocent person you are today.
And you'll wish, almost more than anything, that you could come back to today when you hadn't seen what you have seen. That you now can't unsee.
And you'll think back to how you saw things, how simple it was compared to the sometimes-horrible complexity of life. And if you’re centred, you might even smile, look back on yourself, and think, 'Nice dream.'
The world is a raging torrent. It's not all on you.
You are extraordinary. You can change things that no one else can.
Or, maybe, this is just today's nice dream.
—
PS As well as my one-to-one coaching, I do leadership development work with organisations and teams. You can read about that and see many of the companies that have worked with me here: https://www.robbieswale.com/organisations-and-teams
—
This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
Buy the 12-Minute Method series of books, written 12 minutes a week over three years, here.