For many of us the past year brought us a mix of both good and maybe not-so-good fortunes.

I’m happy about certain things, and feeling unfulfilled about others. You most likely nurse similar feelings.

Take Responsibility For What Happens To You, Even When Someone Else Is To Blame

However, where many of us may differ is with respect to how willing we are to TAKE responsibility for anything that did not go the way we wanted last year.

And that’s why I’m writing this piece.

I believe it’s important to psychologically challenge ourselves to take responsibility for any failures we experience.
Just like we readily claim credit (and demand recognition) for successes we achieve

And I suggest doing this even when you know that the intervention of a particular person for instance led to your failure in that area.

Doing so will keep you in a position of psychological control in matters relating to your personal development and progress.

Examples Of How Professional Sportspersons Frequently Take Responsibility

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In long distance running for instance, it is not uncommon for athletes to accidentally trip or get tripped during a race.

When that happens, an athlete who gets tripped will often have two main options.

She’ll either:

A. get back quickly on to her feet and resume running to catch up with the others. (Some athletes who do this, even end up finishing among the top 3).

B. or she’ll stay down on the assumption that there’s no way to make up the lost ground.

However, even athletes who choose to quit, generally look beyond pointing accusing fingers at whoever it was that tripped them.

Instead, they set out to train themselves towards avoiding a similar misfortune in a future race.

In other words, the athletes generally choose to do what they can to improve their abilities to stay in control of what happens to them in a race.

The same mental attitude frequently guides professionals in other sports e.g Soccer.

From watching the English Premier League matches, one can easily see that players, teams and coaches always try to focus on the big picture.

And for top clubs like Man U, Man City and Chelsea for instance, that “big picture” is often winning the task of getting as many goals and match points as possible in subsequent matches.

They know they have an entire season to battle the other teams. So, even when they’re protesting the loss of a match to another team due to a goal they scored being wrongfully disallowed, Chelsea FC for instance will still go on to play their other scheduled matches .

At the press conference, the coach would likely lament the unfortunate incident.

But most times he would end by indicating that his team would “push forward” and try to recover the lost points in the next match(es).

Note that the coach would likely say the above, even if he expected the FA to reverse the referee’s decision and award the match to his team.

And that’s because professional sportspersons by the nature of their vocation, are conditioned to constantly work hard to control the outcome of every game they play.

So, when there’s a setback, they challenge themselves to explore new ways to recover the lost ground by doing better in the next outing.

What they rarely do is to sit down and moan or whine about how a particular unfortunate incident caused by another person(s), has cost them or limited their chances of doing well.

Yes, they talk about it, and sometimes even make formal complaints to relevant bodies.

But most of them never dwell on it or let it get them down.

Instead, they pick themselves back up with firm resolve to get back on top.

Final Words: Start Taking Responsibility For Your Failures, No Matter Who Caused Them!

A careful study of the careers of those we’ve come to recognise as long term champion sports-persons will reveal that the above point generally holds true for them.

In fact, it is often the key ingredient responsible for their success: I mean their habit of taking responsibility for any misfortune that befalls them, and working hard to overcome it – even when they know someone else caused it.

Anyone who successfully develops the ability to function in the above described manner, will become hard to outdo in any area of endeavor she’s engaged.

Why not adopt this approach in pursuing your goals for this year?

Do so, and you’ll be better off at the year’s end.

Believe me.

You’ll achieve amazing progress inspite of any setbacks you encounter.

And if you really appIy yourself, you’ll discover you’ve become virtually “unstoppable”. Those you relate with, will be unable to hide their “amazement”.

I know this, because I’ve experienced it in form of multiple emails and phonecalls asking me “How do you do it?”.

You have so much to gain, and nothing to lose by making that change from today!