12 Potent Ways to Take Responsibility for Your Life – Starting Today

Here are 13 ways to take responsibility for your life. Each aspect includes several action steps you can implement – starting today.

1. Recognize and discard self-imposed limits

Can you even imagine how powerful you are?

Most cannot.

From the time we were tiny, we’ve constantly directly and indirectly heard things like:

• “You can’t!”
• “You must ______!”
• “You’re so stupid/bad/ugly/____!”
• “Don’t ______!”

Most have internalized these limits and derogatory statements so much so that they don’t need anyone else to say it anymore. Now they tell it to themselves all the time – automatically.

These statements serve one purpose really well – they falsely make you believe you have limits where none actually exist.

You can’t control what happens to you, but you always have control how you view, interpret, and react. You hold all the power.

(Stop believing that crap! It is your choice!)

2. Admit It When You Screw Up

“I did it, I’m sorry. How can I make it right?”

Those 11 words seems to be the scariest words in the world to most people.

Imagine how much stress, grief, discord, and effort could be avoided if people just took a deep breath, uttered those words, and stood tall to take responsibility for their actions.

I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. 

We don’t grow without failing a few (hundred) times first.

Why not admit it when you mess up, take the consequences, and move on to bigger and better things?

And teach our kids (and other adults) through example to do the same?

3. Eschew blame and excuses

If you go around blaming this and blaming that or making excuses upon excuses, you have given away your power to change the situation.

Blame and excuses are the antitheses to taking responsibility.

Try this:

• Invest effort listening to what you say. Look out for “…but, ___”. An excuse is likely to follow. Catch yourself and re-phrase.
• When you’re in a disagreement, watch for phrases that start with “You always___” or “He is such a ________” or “It always _________”. Blame might be trying to rear its ugly head.
• Remove the phrase “It’s not my fault!” from your vocal repertoire. You may think it’s not your fault, but if you sit and think, I bet you can find some thought, some belief, some word, or some action that contributed to the current situation. Reclaim your power and keep it where it belongs – in you.

4. Master Your Physical Body

Do you hate the way you look or feel physically?

The only one can change it is you. How bad do you want to change? 

Are you willing to sacrifice to make things better? It always takes a sacrifice to improve. 

Maybe you’ll have to embrace discomfort, sacrifice those tasty cookies, work extra hard to get yourself to a gym, or give up friends so you can make room for more supportive people in your life.

But what if you’re paralyzed from the neck down or locked up in solitary confinement 24 hours a day?  

You can still change how you think. Learn to accept and love yourself as is. Skip the cookie and grab the broccoli. Do whatever you can do right now.  And be happy about that.

You get one body in this lifetime, and how well you care for it now may well determine how much time you get to stay here on this earth and have more time to live, grow, and share.

5. Master Your Beliefs

Did you know that all the sensory input that comes into your brain from your eyes, ears, hands, and mouth get filtered through your deeply-held belief and experiences before you even generate a thought about it?

Spend some time to write down and understand what it is you truly believe about yourself, your friends, family, and life in general.  

Do you believe all women / democrats / millennials / animals are a certain way?  What are your beliefs about money? What do you believe about what you can and cannot do?

Get a notebook and spend a week just writing down your deeply-held beliefs.  Write at least 75.

When you finish, take a highlighter and highlight the ones that no longer serve or empower you.

Next to your list, write something you’d like to believe in place of the disempowering ones.

It’s hard to change core beliefs, but not impossible.  You made those beliefs because they were either handed down to you and you never questioned them, or because you had enough proof to convince yourself they were true.

If you want to change a belief, search for plenty of proof to support the replacement belief and to discredit the old belief.  Review them often until they’re cemented in your mind, and  the old belief doesn’t even make sense anymore.

6. Master your thoughts

Often, people mistakenly believe that they can’t change their beliefs or thoughts. They just pop up randomly and there’s nothing you can do about it, right?

Not true!

With consistent time and effort, you can change your thoughts and beliefs. There are plenty of how-to books outlining various processes for doing so. First, though, you have to become aware of them.

Keep a notebook and write a list of thoughts. When something happens and you have an emotional reaction, take the time to analyze.

• “What was I thinking in that moment?”
• “What thoughts am I having that causes me to feel sad/angry/etc.?”
• “What’s another way of thinking about this? Would it better serve me to change how I think about this?”

When trying to become aware of and/or change thought patterns, meditation can be very useful. Read some how-to guide, download some guided meditations, set a timer (you can start with just 5 minutes a day), and try it.

The brain’s process usually follows this pathway: Belief → Thought → Feeling → Action.

By changing your thoughts, you change many other important areas of your life, and you can increase your sense of fulfillment and happiness, 24/7.

I don’t promise it’s easy. But I do promise it’s effective.

Take responsibility for your thoughts, and you’ll be much more able to take responsibility for your actions and your life.

7. Master your moods & attitude

Do you ever wake up in a crappy mood, and you just snap at everyone who comes near you? 

Often, your moods and attitude just seem uncontrollable, too, don’t they?

To take total responsibility for your life, control your moods and attitude as well. If you simply can’t, at least control how you respond and act in spite of your current mood and attitude.

In a bad mood and can’t seem to snap out of it?

• Imagine one of the happiest moments of your life.  See the space around you in that happy moment. Smell the air. Feel the goosebumps on your skin. Immerse yourself in the scene. Your body will react and it’ll be easier to snap out of your present mood once you shift your focus back to the present.
• Read a book on neuro-linguistic programming. Practice some of the exercises.
• Read (or listen to) The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

8. Master Your Words

Words are one of the most powerful tools you own. They can create a Heaven or a Hell in a matter of seconds, and their effects can last for centuries.

We’ve already discussed mastering your internal words – you beliefs and thoughts – but it’s just as, if not more, important to master the words you form within and let fly without.

Six of the most effective strategies for mastering the words you speak include:

• Get into the habit of pausing before you speak. Even a few milliseconds gives you time to consider what you’re about to say and prevent problems before they begin.
• Increase your vocabulary so you can express yourself more clearly.  If you only have one word in your verbal repertoire for “good”, for example, no one will understand just how amazingly awesome that visit with your sister was and how it affected you. Read more. Learn a new word every day and use it throughout the day.
• Join Toastmasters.
• When you want to verbally attack someone for some wrong you think they committed, take a second to imagine yourself standing inside their body, listening to the words you’re about to throw at them. Take time to imagine things from their perspective before you utter a single word.
• Alternatively, start off your adversarial conversations with questions to make sure you fully understand where they’re coming from before you start showering them with your opinions. Start with, “So, just so I’m understanding correctly, you think/said _____. Is that right?”.
• Read about nonviolent communication at The Center for Nonviolent Communication.

9. Master Your Actions

Our actions can get us into a lot of trouble pretty quickly, can’t they?

Taking responsibility for your life heavily relies on mastering your actions.

If you follow the steps above to work on mastering your beliefs, thoughts, moods, attitude, and words, you’ve already got a big head start on mastering your actions.

• Don’t act impetuously. Insert a pause before you act so you can act deliberately and methodically.
• Before acting, ask yourself, “Will this action I’m about to take align with who I am and who I want to be? What does it say about me and who I am?”.
• Get into the habit of reviewing your day at bedtime. Review what you’ve done, how it affected you and others, and how you can improve tomorrow.
• If you just don’t notice how you act or come across, put cameras (like the Wyze cam) in the rooms of your house and spend some time at the end of the day reviewing your actions, your words, and how you come across to the ones near and dear to you.  Commend yourself for being a person of integrity and responsibility, and make notes of areas you want to improve upon.

10. Embrace Optimism & Growth

Do you know people who take responsibility for all aspects of their life and the results they have?

I’m willing to bet they’re aren’t people who sit around complaining and focusing on all the negatives. Every responsible person I’ve ever met is an optimist with a growth mindset.

Take responsibility for every aspect of your life, and do so embracing optimism and growth.

No one is happy and chipper 100% of the time. Just make sure that the majority of your days are flooded with positive, growth-seeking thoughts and actions.

• Create a morning routine that sets you up to have a positive outlook and the best day possible.
• Take at least 15-30 minutes a day to do something just for you. Set aside your stresses and responsibilities and indulge yourself in something that pampers or tends you and elevates your mood. Call an old friend, put rose petals in a steamy, warm bath, take a walk in nature. Schedule time for you.

11. Recognize It’s Not Just All About You 

Thus far, we’ve discussed how and why to take responsibility for all aspects of your life. But there’s another aspect to taking responsibility that’s just as important and necessary.

You are responsible outside yourself, too.

I’m not talking about the responsibilities you’ve taken on at work or in your relationships.  Those were created by you, and of course, your creations are your responsibility, too.

To fully take responsibility for your life, recognize that you are part of a dynamic, living system that includes our earthly environment, sentient beings that share it with you (and have no voice of their own), and other people who you will probably never meet. 

I know, I know.

You’re born alone, you go through life alone, save the people you connect and disconnect with along the way, and you die alone. So it seems it’s all just about you, right?  

You take care of you and let everyone else fend for themselves, eh? Seems legit, doesn’t it?

I don’t touch on spirituality anywhere on this site, but if you study science and metaphysics, you’ll probably realize that the separation we feel isn’t as it seems.  We are all connected, even the plants, animals, and that little Tanzanian boy living in a tiny village halfway around the world. 

What you do today over here in Podunk, USA in 2019 could quite possibly affect someone or something living over in China 80 years from now. 

But even if it doesn’t, how you treat the beings you share this planet with define you and either hinder or accelerate your own personal growth. What kind of person do you want to be? What effect do you want to leave behind when it’s time to leave?

Expand your knowledge and widen your responsibility domain.

You are responsible for more than just you.

12. Plan, Review, Improve, Track Regularly

I’m sure you’ve heard the quote, “Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail”. 

Part of taking responsibility for your life entails: 

• Knowing what you want
• Mapping out a series of tasks that will get you where you want to go
• Following through consistently
• Adjusting when things go awry, and 
• Reviewing often to make sure you’re on track and still making progress.

Schedule an hour every Sunday, for example, to do just that. Plan, review, and track your progress.

Here are some useful tools:

• Habit Tracker 2.0 – Goal Tracker Bundle – track and visualize your habits & goals with colorful charts
• Strides App – easy-to track your goals on all desktop, phone, or tablet
• RescueTime – make sure you’re not wasting too much time with frivolous activity
• Shutupandachieve.com – useful articles to be productive and make the most of your life