What to do
1. Stop blaming. To take responsibility for your life, you need to stop blaming situations and other people for your unhappiness. You shouldn’t become like a victim, blaming everything on your bad childhood, social problems, or difficulties encountered along the way. In fact, these accusations will not change your life, will not help you become a successful and happy person.
Avoiding responsibility comes from not knowing how to do something. Usually those people for whom everyone in life decided everything except themselves cannot take responsibility. They have been taught since childhood that if something doesn’t work out, their mother or someone else will do it. Such people still need not to give up, but to begin consistent training in independence, which will lead to the gradual maturation of the individual.
2. Stop making excuses. By making excuses, you don't give yourself the opportunity to learn from your own mistakes. What happens is what was mentioned in point 1. You again begin to blame, shielding yourself, dwelling on the negative. By taking responsibility for what happened, you extinguish the negativity, you understand that what happens outside of you does not matter. Only in this case does it become clear that what you get from life is the result only of your actions.
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Why is taking responsibility so difficult?
The solipsist wakes up with a severe hangover,
and, of course, there is nothing around.
Max Fry "Simple Magical Things"
Now let’s talk about why there are so many difficulties with accepting responsibility.
Of course, it is no coincidence that people tend to see the words “take responsibility” as anything but the most direct and obvious interpretation. It is sometimes very difficult to agree with her.
Firstly, when we think about taking full responsibility for everything, for some reason it seems to us that then we will have to answer for something. And it's scary.
For mercy's sake, to whom to answer? To yourself? After all, we took full responsibility solely upon ourselves! Do you have a split personality?
But the main obstacle, of course, is that taking responsibility is painful. It can be terribly unpleasant to admit that your entire current situation, and everything that happened, was always created only by you. And not “circumstances” or anyone else who could be blamed. Usually the psyche tries to protect itself from this truth with all its might.
These protections are even put on a mass basis in society. For the convenience of the user, so to speak.
I don’t know if you’ve thought about it, but in Western society, almost everyone is a priori raised to be so-called “objective materialists.” No one, before starting education, asks a child what philosophical views he would prefer to profess.
Of course, giving children such a choice would be quite strange. And a parent is unlikely to be able to instill in a child a picture of the world that is very different from his own.
But the fact remains a fact. By analogy with the terms “state religion” and “public morality,” objective materialism can safely be called “generally accepted philosophy.”
Other ways of looking at the situation are labeled “subjective idealism,” “solipsism,” or some other scientific name. And they are declared “an escape from reality.” What, according to public opinion, is bad and wrong.
It is also customary to add that all this has been studied by science for a long time, is nothing but mind games, and does not carry anything useful in itself.
I can’t help but remember a quote from Pelevin’s “Chapaev and Emptiness”:
Of course, there is a win-win way to end any dispute by classifying the interlocutor - it costs nothing to say that everything he is leading to is well known, called so-and-so, and human thought has long moved forward. But I was ashamed to be like a self-satisfied student who leafed through a philosophical textbook in between pistons.
The question, however, is not whether we are ashamed to become like the smug student.
The question is, is classification really our goal?
Do we need to end some abstract debate about the structure of the world? Or do we still just want to live well?
To those who chose the first, I must apologize that such an insidious external circumstance as mine forced you to read right up to this point in order to ultimately inform you that you will not receive any benefit from the article.
Now you can definitely stop reading with a clear conscience. And go about their business, waving the locus of control that is falling out of all the cracks, and complaining about the harsh, irresistible “reality”.
For those who decided to stay with us and try to make their lives better, I’ll explain.
The fact is that our ideas about anything are nothing more than products of our reactive mind.
And ideas about the structure of the world in this sense are no exception. They are no fundamentally different from belief in omens, magical rituals or astrology.
This information is either already in our consciousness, or gets there through the senses, again being recorded exclusively by consciousness. This even applies to the existence of sense organs as such.
Whatever one may say, the only point of reference for ourselves is ourselves. And we can only test ourselves by ourselves. That is, in essence - nothing. But this determines our entire worldview and the existence based on it.
Serious scientists, by the way, usually understand perfectly well that their work is, first of all, a game. They know how many axioms and assumptions there are. And they don’t suffer from unnecessary pathos about “knowledge of reality.” They play and have fun. The average person who deals only with the results of their labor does not understand this.
Agree, in such uncertain conditions it is simply stupid to rush around with your own beliefs, trying to separate the true from the false.
Beliefs should be approached from an applied point of view. Based on some more or less absolute standards for a person.
For simplicity, I propose to consider this measure as freedom to create for ourselves the life we want. Sounds like a pretty good universal value, doesn't it?
All that remains is to accept those beliefs that will expand our ability to manage this life. Within the framework, of course, in which we, at the moment, are really able to believe in them.
It’s important not to lie too much to yourself here. Self-deception will inevitably be revealed in the end.
There is no need to rush and feed your ego with beautiful myths. You are far from omnipotent yet, and when you are, you will hardly be able to appreciate it. There is an excellent proverb about this. “Nothing cures solipsism like a hot iron applied to the stomach.” 
Gradually, it makes sense to expand the scope of your own capabilities. Incorporating into your belief system more and more power over your own life.
So taking responsibility is not “solipsism.” And not a philosophical theory at all.
All this is a purely practical, applied belief. Significantly more resourceful than the generally accepted belief that our capabilities are limited. Because it does not imply the presence of mental barriers in the spirit: “I can do this, but this is no longer in my power (capabilities, power, competence).”
“Objective reality” is precisely the part that does not depend on us. Therefore, taking it as the basis of our picture of the world, we outline the scope of our own capabilities. That is, we decide for ourselves - this is what I CAN’T do. Never. All.
When you accept responsibility, you will immediately discover a lot of amazing inconsistencies and “software bugs” in the algorithms of human behavior.
For example, those who strive so hard “not to bend to the changing world” are fighting with nothing other than themselves. With that part of themselves that they themselves decided to recognize as inaccessible to their influence. But what a battle it is sometimes.
Those who, on the contrary, try to skillfully adapt to “reality”, relying on their own attitudes, strive to become “successful”, looking for loopholes in the labyrinth of their own illusory ideas about the world. And they consider themselves dexterous and skillful when they manage to outwit themselves. And they are very proud of themselves.
It's funny, isn't it?
From the incorrect interpretation of the idea of responsibility, a mass of illusions and myths that are completely empty in essence, but greatly interfere with life, has grown. Starting with the most basic myth - that there are some universal “correct” opinions, behavior, actions and solutions to any issues.
Friends, there is no way to live correctly. At all. Don't waste your life trying to understand and formulate them, as most people do. By doing this you are only creating limitations for yourself. In my head. Nothing more.
There is a postulate that says that a person never makes any mistakes. He always acts optimally based on the information and capabilities that he currently has.
In the context of the above, it becomes not only understandable, but even completely obvious.
If you manage to accept the fact that, in essence, you have no one but yourself, never had and never will, that everything that happens happens exclusively for you and for your sake, since it matters purely for the fact of your perception and assessment
This means that many usually painful considerations will no longer cause dissonance in you.
For example, that you should focus and rely only on yourself. That judging yourself by external assessment, comparing with someone, or asserting yourself in any way is the height of a senseless waste of energy. Etc.
And start looking for and taking from the world around you what you want and like. Calmly refusing everything unwanted.
And it's not about what philosophy you profess. And it’s not about considering all reality to be subjective. To do this would only mean replacing one unshakable linear picture of the world with another.
There is no point in arguing about whether other people and events exist besides us, or are a figment of our imagination.
Does that cup of coffee “really” still exist when you turn your head the other way? Or was it created only by your consciousness, and immediately disappears along with the table?
What's the difference! You'll never know! Forget about this “really”. It really doesn't matter at all, believe me. For our life, that’s true.
The only important thing is that only you can influence everything that happens to you in the direction you need. And if you don’t yet know how to achieve this or that “unattainable” goal or cope with something that supposedly “doesn’t depend on you”, then you simply haven’t found the right lever yet and haven’t learned how to control it.
Search. Learn.
After all, only believing that we are able to influence the situation will we try to influence it. Otherwise, we won’t even try. Nothing depends on us anyway.
Let's not carry around unnecessary rubbish in our heads. With it, the brain becomes too clumsy. Let's not seriously confess anything at all. No materialism, no idealism, no solipsism, no specific philosophy or -isms. Maybe just for fun, at home, under the covers.
We'll just act like it's all up to us. As if we can do anything. Perhaps there is something we haven’t figured out yet, we don’t know how, we don’t know how. But if necessary, we can learn. And we will study if necessary. Then everything will truly depend on us. And we really can do anything.
This is what is called taking responsibility.
If now I couldn’t convince you, that’s your business. Stay in a world in which almost nothing depends on you, and the existential fear of freedom makes you wake up at night in a cold sweat or takes much wilder forms of compensation than the one I proposed in this article.
A world where you have to constantly search for the missing “truth” and try in vain to figure out how life “really” works. And in matters of achieving what you want, the decisive vote is always not with you, but with His Majesty Chance, be it Fortune or Fate.
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Pay attention to yourself
3. Love yourself. People who have problems with self-esteem do not take responsibility for their lives. If you expect constant praise from other people in order to make yourself look better in their eyes, you are giving power to others. When you love and value yourself, you are a self-sufficient person, there is no other choice but to take responsibility for your own life.
4. Work on daily habits. Taking responsibility and loving yourself is more than just a state of mind—it's actions and habits you work on every day. Ways to help you take responsibility for your body and mind include:
- proper sleep;
- healthy eating;
- regular training;
- increasing your spirituality;
- gratitude to yourself and others;
- reflections.
Learn to take responsibility for your life by working on yourself every day.
Feelings of guilt for the negative consequences of decisions made
First, let's try to give up the feeling of guilt for what is happening to us. And let's look at our troubles from the point of view of a consistent picture of the world in order to understand their origin and consequences.
Let us formulate a definition of guilt, analyze its source and reasons for its occurrence. From a psychological point of view, guilt is a destructive emotional reaction of a person to self-blame and self-condemnation. The feeling of guilt is essentially aggression directed at oneself, a desire for self-punishment. One more definition. Guilt is guilt in the general sense, a subjective or social characteristic that determines the presence of responsibility for committed acts.
From this we can conclude that the feeling of guilt arises when we, taking responsibility for events or actions, realize their negative consequences for ourselves or other people. Thus, personal responsibility is the source of guilt, and the negative consequences of decisions made are its cause. It seems to us that the negative consequences of decisions and actions taken are obvious and objective, and if we created them, then we are to blame. Admission of guilt must be followed by punishment. Self-punishment suppresses our will and creates fear in making decisions. Guilt is destructive to our personality. In order to get rid of the feeling of guilt, we are ready to refuse to accept responsibility and try to shift it to any external factors. By giving up control of our destiny, we destroy our lives. It turns out to be a vicious circle from which there seems to be no way out.
In fact, there is a way out. To see and understand it, you need to look at yourself and the events happening to us from the point of view of a consistent picture of the world . To do this, imagine at least for a minute that everything in this world is good and correct, that everything that happens to you and around you is the result of the decisions you made. Without fear and prejudice, look at your life as if from the outside, from the outside. Try to see it as a whole, as a continuous, interconnected chain of events. You will be surprised to discover that without defeats there would be no victories, without the catastrophic consequences of decisions made there would be no amazing gains.
We created this life, and we are not to blame for anything. Every moment we make a decision based on all our beliefs that we have formed throughout our previous life. In order for us to make a different decision, we needed to live a slightly different life with different beliefs. In other words, each of our current manifestations of will is determined by all previous ones. This is one of the reasons to give up feeling guilty for unsuccessful decisions and actions.
Another and, perhaps, the main reason for abandoning the feeling of guilt is that what we are accustomed to consider, due to a limited, fragmented worldview, as troubles, misfortunes and misfortunes, in fact, are not such. More precisely, these events are seen as such due to our emotional and biased assessment of them. This happens because, while experiencing an ongoing event, we cannot assess its impact on our future life. We will not consider situations where a little trouble saves you from a big disaster. Although such cases have also been recorded. Much more interesting are the consequences of seemingly wrong decisions, which radically change our attitude towards ourselves, towards people, towards the world and God for the better. By looking fearlessly and objectively at our lives, each of us can discover such events in our lives. If troubles and tragedies have already happened to you, but your life hasn’t changed for the better after them, don’t worry, everything is ahead. The paradox is that it is the misfortunes that happen to us, especially as a result of our choices, that have the greatest impact on our lives. Provided that we evaluate it fearlessly and objectively.
From the point of view of a consistent picture of the world, a mistake in making a decision is a teaching and soul-developing lesson, of course, if we perceive it adequately. Even if the consequences of our decision negatively affect other people, as we think, we should not feel guilty. We must understand, accept and consciously pay for what we have done. Those who play these games with us chose them themselves, have the right to their own assessment of events and are themselves responsible for their results. Troubles, misfortunes and misfortunes that happen to us are nothing more than incentives for our development, in addition, they bring a variety of experiences into our lives.
Emotional condition
5. Accept negative emotions. Every person has a light and a dark side and understands that suffering is inevitable. If you don't accept the dark part of life, it comes back with a new and stronger lesson. You need to be completely honest with yourself. You need to learn to listen and hear your inner voice, which gives clues. Spiritual teacher Osho said that you need to be who you are, there is no need to try to be different. Only in this case comes maturity and responsibility for your actions and your life.
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6. Understand that happiness is within us. We must consciously understand that responsibility for our life comes when we do not chase something external. Now there is a lot of advertising in the world that forces us to buy a new iPhone, new clothes, a car, shoes, equipment... We need to understand that the temporary joy of purchasing does not increase self-esteem and satisfaction. And the rush to buy does not make us more responsible; rather, it shows that we need someone’s approval, that we are good, that we can afford it...
True happiness lies within each of us, and if we understand this, we take responsibility for our lives.
7. Do what you say. In any matter, if what is said is consistent with the matter, it means that you can take responsibility. That is, you promise and deliver. This is trustworthy. How to check that what is promised will be fulfilled? There are four principles to follow.
- Never agree or promise anything unless you are 100% sure you can deliver. Consider “yes” a contract.
- Make a Schedule: Every time you say “yes” to someone, or even to yourself, put it on your calendar.
- Don't make excuses: sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. Even if you are forced to break obligations, do not make excuses.
- Be honest. Being impeccable with your promise means being honest with yourself and with others. You will become the guy or girl people can rely on.
Why do you need to take responsibility?
—When did you realize that you are God?
- Well, I was praying and suddenly I realized that I was talking to myself!
Some joke
And why, in fact, should we think that everything depends on us? You can't argue with reality, can you? Why then this ridiculous self-confidence?
And besides, my dears, how we think is how we live .
And if experts in these psychologies of yours say that such an approach is just a way to cope with the existential fear of freedom and the impossibility of complete control, good-naturedly pat these theorists on the shoulder and sincerely wish them successful survival in their harsh reality. After all, it is very difficult for them to live in it.
Because there is a kind of recursion taking place here. If you believe that life is arranged in a certain way, it is arranged that way for you. And your entire life path will unconsciously be structured in such a way as to confirm this attitude.
For those who like to cram more limiting beliefs into their bins, which are taken for life experience, this, of course, is a minus. But you and I, on the contrary, are exactly what we need, right?
The point is not at all how “objective” this or that belief is. Belief cannot be objective in principle. What matters is how it benefits us from a functional point of view. Like a tool.
We don’t carry a set of tools with us all the time. Moreover, it would not seem reasonable to us to attach parts of our own body to them. We take them when we might need them.
In exactly the same way, you shouldn’t cling to your beliefs.
But since you have to have them anyway, isn’t it better that your belief about how the world works is the belief that its structure depends solely on you?
Using such a tool may be unusual at first. But only at first. After all, it is he who provides the widest opportunities available.
Let's return to transport examples. They are very visual.
For fun, let's imagine that we are sure that the movement of cars is an objective phenomenon that does not depend in any way on a person.
Suppose we believe that cars drive on the streets by themselves. And if some people are sitting behind the wheel, then this has nothing to do with the movement of the car. What they are doing there, and how this is connected with the fact that the car is going in one direction or another, we don’t think about it.
Because it is an objective phenomenon. Given. This is how the world works, and that says it all.
Introduced?.. Doesn’t remind you of anything?
Now all our power over our own transport movements is limited solely to the ability to get into someone’s car so that it takes us somewhere. It would never even occur to us that a machine can be controlled, that it is in our power. And that we can even buy a “car” ourselves, learn to drive it, and go wherever and however we want.
With such views, we will not even think that this can be learned. Because we simply don’t think this is possible.
Being convinced that your own legs do not obey you, you will never be able to get to the desired place.
And if you don’t believe that the “universe” is under your control, you won’t even try to find a way to turn it in the right direction.
This is exactly how a person treats the area that he considers “objective reality” and “external factors beyond his control.” It’s not that he won’t sit down to manage it, he doesn’t even assume that it’s even possible to manage it. Doesn't believe it.
And without recognizing that you and only you are not just an object, but also the cause of what is happening, you will not be able to take the reins of your own life into your hands. Only knowing that the steering wheel is in your hands can you begin to learn to steer consciously.
In contrast to the “how does the world work?” approach, the “how do I do this?” approach. opens up the possibility of true power over fate. Note that this very power does not give, but rather opens up opportunity.
But this is already quite a lot. Because with a traditional hike, this opportunity is tightly locked. And we are chained within the framework of our own ideas about what is possible and what is not, and are actually helpless.
After all, everything that you push in your consciousness beyond the boundaries of your own capabilities will naturally be out of your control. And what you place in your thoughts in the zone of your own “competence” will sooner or later end up there in life.
Therefore, the wider your awareness of your own influence on your life, the more potential power over it you have. The difference is roughly like between being dependent on someone unknown or providing for yourself.
Responsibility can only be realized or denied to oneself in its awareness. And in the second case, we look as if we are walking with our eyes closed, not knowing exactly where. And when we periodically stumble, fall and hurt our foreheads, we attribute it to those around us, the “structure of life” and “objective circumstances.” To the so-called “reality”.
In psychology, this is called the position of the locus of control. Although, from a practical point of view, you don’t need to remember this at all.
By the way, the word “realize” flashed here for a reason. Understanding responsibility, that is, that it is you yourself, and not anyone else, who creates cause-and-effect relationships for what is happening, which is what is commonly called awareness
in the broadest sense of the word, including various esoteric interpretations.
What else needs to be done?
8. Don't complain. Taking responsibility is all you need to do for your own life. Complaining is the exact opposite of this. If you can't act, what's the point of complaining? The thing to remember is that when you complain, you become a victim. A good example is a prayer that asks for the peace of mind to be able to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what is possible, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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9. Take action. One of the useful tips on how to take responsibility for your life is to start working towards your dreams, goals, and ambitions. If you stand still, you will not achieve any ambitions and no goals will be fulfilled. Therefore, by taking even small steps, you improve your life.
Circle of friends
10. Communicate with friendly people. By having relationships with people in your social circle, you become like them over time. Don't underestimate the influence of pessimistic, unscrupulous, or disorganized friends. If someone doesn't make you stronger, they make you weaker. Your social circle should consist of people who encourage you to grow and help you live a productive life. When dealing with toxic, sarcastic people, you will do the same.
Taking responsibility for your life is crucial, we are all capable of doing this, and living the best life we can. The key is to stop blaming other people and focus on what we can control: our actions. When you start focusing on your daily habits and doing what you say you will, you will be on your way to living the life you've always dreamed of.
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