Taking Charge of Your Career and Your Life Part Three

Take responsibility for what you do.  How does this affect your happiness? Well, if you don't do certain particular things, if you don't find mentors and you don't take responsibility for things that you want to do, you are going to wind up waiting for them to make you happy. 

Take responsibility for the things that happen to you, let me give you a scenario.  You are driving a car, you come to a light, you stop at the light.  You have done everything perfect and the person behind you doesn't stop and smashes into your car.  Your reaction probably is you want to grab this person and shake him.  You might want to beat the living hell out of this person for smashing your beautiful car. 

You want to do all those things but guess what, that is not going to get your car fixed. The bottom line is, the way you're going to get your car fixed is to take it to the shop, give it to a repair man and he is going to fix it.  Now think about that.  Somebody smashed into your car and I telling you to not get pissed off - just get your car fixed.  You might say, why shouldn't I want to strangle him - it is his fault. 

OK, so you yell at him, then what?  Well then I strangle him.  Yeah, yeah, and then what?  Then I am going to sue him!  Yeah, yeah, and then what?  The answer is you are going to take the car to a garage and pay to get the bumper fixed.  Sooo, instead of stressing yourself out, instead of getting upset, maybe, just maybe, if you are one of the enlightened people of this world, you might think: "I wonder what is wrong with this person who hit my car.  Maybe he had a bad day, maybe he is sick, maybe something is personal is going on with him." 

Rather than stressing yourself out, maybe you could figure out a way to care about the person that just hit your car.  I can tell you, if you can reach that level, your whole life will get better.  Your entire life will get better if you can stop being angry at the outside world that does bad things to you all day long.  Just focus on the things you have to do to fix your car.  It is your responsibility, that's what is going to happen.  You can spend weeks being pissed at this person, scream and yell and get yourself all upset and everything else, but it is not going to get the car fixed. 

A lot of the things I am saying here is about your career and your life.  They are all interchangeable.  It is not different in business then it is in your personal life.  The thing that I just talked about could be a scenario you could find in your mind when it comes to business or you could take that same scenario and play it out in your personal life.  Your boss yells at you for something you did not do, you could get angry or you could think he had a bad day.  Your spouse yells at you for something you did not do, you could get angry or you could think that something is bothering him/her that really has nothing to do with me - he/she is just taking it out on me. 

By taking responsibility, you have the power to turn the other cheek.  You have the power to not get upset.  You have the power to not get defensive.  You have the power to not get angry.  You are not doing it for them.  You are doing it for yourself.  Angry will not get the car fixed.  Upset will not get your boss to back off,  Defensive will not help your spouse to get over whatever is bothering him/her.  By caring for them, you will be the big winner.

If you are going to take responsibility then there is something else I want you to do.  I want you to try for one month never saying the words "should've" or "could've".  That is not easy and I have been the victim of it for many years.  There are things that I do to make sure that I don't have to say "should've" or "could've".  For example, I buy a lottery ticket.  I buy a lottery ticket every week.  I have numbers.  Ellen's birthday, my birthday. Why am I buying that lottery ticket?  Because the day I don't buy that lottery ticket those numbers are coming in and the first thing out of my mouth is "I should've bought that lottery ticket." 

I am not going to put myself in that position.  If I can't live with the "should've" or "could've", then I'm not going to put myself in a "should've"  "could've" position.  If you should've done it, then you should've done it.  If you could've done it, why didn't you do it? 

There is a reason why you didn't do it.  It could be anything, but there is a reason.  Lazy might be a bad reason, but it is a reason.  If the lottery comes in you've got to be able to live with yourself and say to yourself:  "I had reasons why I didn't do it."  Instead of walking around and beating on yourself and being angry with yourself for months or years saying I should've done this, I should've done this, I could've done this, say to yourself there was a reason (bad or good) and I choose to not dwell on it. 

There are so many things I should've done in my life that I didn't do.  There are so many things that I would like to change that I could have done that I didn't do.  This is just not about business.  It is about my personal life, it is about raising my children, about my jobs, about a million things.   I used to walk around all day long and beat the hell out of myself saying I should've done it.  I could've done this.  STOP! No more "should’ve" and "could’ve".  If you should've done it, then you should've have done.  If you could've done it, then there was reasons why you didn't do it.  It might not be good reasons.  It doesn't have to be a good reason, there was a reason why you didn't do it. 

Stop beating on yourself.  Stop being so angry with yourself.  Stop being so hard on yourself.  If you are going to put yourself in that position and you really don't want to be in that position then don't do the "should’ve" and "could’ve".  If you could've done it, do it.  No matter what it costs, I am buying that lottery ticket for that one reason.  Do I think I am going to win this lottery?  Well, hell, maybe I have a chance, however if I don't buy the ticket, I definitely won't win it.  I don't go to bed every night thinking I'm winning this lottery.  But I guarantee you the second I don't buy that ticket, those numbers are coming in.  I am not putting myself in that position. I'm taking responsibility.