The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #10 Accept Responsibility for Your Decisions
How many times have we seen friends and family constantly getting into the same problems time after time? And how many times do we offer advice to them, hoping they’ll make a different decision with better results the next time? How many times do we have to listen to their unhappiness, frustration, or anger of their predicament as they fail to recognize or accept responsibility for their actions?
They hate their job. They can’t stand their spouse. It’s inefficient to not take responsibility for your actions. Why would you want to waste time and money on making bad decisions anyway, failing to learn from your mistakes?
If we’re the one making bad decisions and hating our career or life management outcomes, then why can’t we change? Because that would require practicing “Rule #9 – Become self aware.” It’s not easy learning self awareness, so we can improve our decisions and learn how to accept responsibility for our actions. Sometimes, it takes years to figure out that we create our own reality in our career or in life.
Action Items
What can you do if you have loved ones who don’t accept responsibility for their actions? As a friend or family member, we can’t save people from themselves. We can’t make decisions for our loved ones, protecting them from harm or other circumstances. We can only offer advice and then let go of our vested interest or dysfunctional concern in their outcome. Until they choose to accept responsibility for their actions, they’ll never have improved results. All we can do is have patience, be compassionate, and not judge them.
What if it’s you making the bad decisions? Then do not pass “Go,” and go back to “Rule #9 – Become self aware.” Learn to accept responsibility for your decisions and make peace with the consequences of those decisions. Remember to have compassion with yourself. Your decisions have created who you are today. If you don’t like what you’ve created, then it’s time to change.
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The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management series outlines my rules of personal and work success. After reflecting on my personal values, I made this list, realizing values are my rules of being or life management principles. Based on your experiences, I hope this list inspires you to identify your own rules. Here are the rules to my success that may help you over the course of your journey:
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: Overview of the Pyramid and Its Levels
Level 1: Rules for Our Fundamental Nature
- #1 Find your own spirituality and practice it.
- #2 Know what you want or the Universe (or God) won’t know what to send you: If you don’t know what you want, how can you get to where you want to be?
- #3 Fate or free will? Regardless of what you believe, we all have a purpose to being here. The tricky part is discovering what it is.
- #4 Don’t wait for your future to happen to you, you have to be vigilant in making your future happen.
- #5 Understand your dark side, but don’t give into it or indulge it.
- #6 Aspire to always help and teach others.
Level 2: Rules of Continuous Learning and Modeling
- #7 Watch or read media sources when you need inspiration. Reflect on why you like a certain movie or TV show, so you understand why it moves you.
- #8 Always be learning. Continue learning through books or any source that gives you new ideas on how to approach your work or feeds your passion.
- #9 Become self aware. If you aren’t, then how will you know you’re screwing up?
- #10 Accept responsibility and make peace with your decisions and the consequences of those decisions. They have created the person you are today. The trick is, do you like what you’ve created? If not, then how can you change?
- #11 Keep a lid on chaos. Never let situations or emotions get away from you. Be the calm in the eye of the storm as strength, reflecting confidence for the most vulnerable people in your life.
Level 3: Rules for the Actual Journey
- #12 Stay still and don’t move if you feel lost, so you can find yourself or let the opportunity find you.
- #13 Always be course correcting.
- #14 Surround yourself with trusted and loyal friends. Be prepared to deal with betrayal without ambivalence. But be prepare to forgive (if the person is sincere, I mean really sincere).
- #15 Learn to channel your inner extrovert, if you’re an introvert. Learn to channel your inner introvert, if you’re an extrovert.
Level 4: Rules of Adapting to Environment and Interacting with Others
- #16 Make peace with your weaknesses. We’re not perfect. Even your strengths will turn into weaknesses. The trick is knowing when your strength has become a weakness.
- #17 Master your emotions and body language. Use them strategically in life and work.
- #18 Mentor yourself via the Space Time Continuum. What would your future self tell your present self? How can you get back on track? What have you done well? What more can you do? What would you tell yourself as a child, teen, 20 or 30 something?
Level 5: Rules of Humility
- #19 Never take your success for granted. Always prepare for the worst case scenarios. Be prepared for two steps forward and one step back.
- #20 Be humble. Treat others well, don’t be arrogant, and don’t drink your own Kool-Aid.
Level 6: Rule of Being
- #21 Be compassionate.
Similar Posts:
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #13 Always be Course Correcting
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: Overview of the Pyramid and Its Levels
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #6 Aspire to always help and teach others
- The Smart Lemming Rules of Life and Career Management: #7 Watch or read media sources when you need inspiration
