100% Responsible

I’ve just start reading Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles.  For my regular readers, you may begin to see a pattern here.  First, I warned you early on that I was on a search, some would say the search for purpose. Second, I saw the author (famous for writing Chicken Soup for the Soul) on my favorite source of all knowledge, Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. Starting a new book was part of my self-imposed challenge to do something new everyday last week.  Finally, I come from a long line of book lovers and buying books makes me really feel good.  Buying physical books, rather than ebooks, makes me feel even better.  Does that happen to anyone else?

At first glance, the book is daunting.  I mean there are 25 Success Principles. That’s a lot. Although my record for buying books is quite strong, my record for actually finishing books is significantly less impressive.  But I’m giving it a whirl because the author’s confidence that everyone has a unique and important contribution to bring to the world.  I agree.  Who wouldn’t want to learn more about that!

The first principle was so simple, yet so startlingly, that I thought it worthy of its own post.  Take 100% responsibility for your life.  That’s it.  Everything I have, everything I don’t have — the good, the bad, the indifferent–is of my making.  I’m not a victim.  It didn’t just happen to me.  I made decisions and took actions that have creating the life I have today.  For good or for bad. Yes, things outside our control happen in life, but then we all did something with that event that helped put us where we are now.

There is something both harsh and freeing about that principle.

It’s harsh in the sense that I really have to take ownership of where I am, what I did or didn’t do, and the results.  I’ve had a wonderful, but unconventional life — no husband, no kids, just one kick-ass cat.  I chose that and now I own it, for good for bad.  So days I love those decisions but some days I don’t.  I’ve had a rewarding, but circuitous career from lawyering to lobbying to operations to communications and back again.  Right now, that makes me uniquely, broadly experienced but I’m also finding that it excludes me from some opportunities which demand deep vertical expertise, above all.  It didn’t just happen.  I made those choices and here I am.  100% responsible.

On the lighter side, the beauty of taking 100% responsibility for my life means that I’m the creator of it.  I get to make choices.  I get to make changes.  If I want something different, I can have it, if I’m ready to work for it.  That’s the key.  Being responsible for all of it means that the world is my oyster. The future is not yet set and, for me, it can be painted whatever colors I choose.  Who wouldn’t want to live the life they create!

So let’s get painting.