Why is it so vital for you to not blame yourself?
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but a lot of people seem to be focusing on themselves these days. They don’t recognise that our life is our responsibility and no one else’s.
When you start talking about blame, it’s an external thing rather than blaming yourself, blaming an external thing where you’re blaming others or situations, etc. However, when it comes to considering things from the inside rather than thinking of oneself as a scapegoat, take responsibility it and own your situation.
So it’s not shifting the blame. It’s just ignoring the blame aspect and taking responsibility for the outcome. Whatever it is, you’ve just got to have that attitude of not letting others dictate your world, and go claim ownership over something. When you make it someone else’s responsibility, your power is taken away.
Sharing hardships in my book
I’ve got to be honest it’s not something that I talk about a lot, and the reason I don’t talk about it is that apart from that small window of time where I was looking for something to blame and someone to blame for situations that were going on, I really don’t think about it very often.
I thought it was important to speak about it in my book because it’s a great example of looking at what someone else has done to you and how you can let it shape you (or not shape you).
How we frame things can impact the lives of others
What I find troubling when I hear of horrific actions being taken against children today (or adults for that matter) is in the way they’re talked about. As someone who has lived through a pretty bad experience, I have extreme empathy for anyone who goes through what I experienced, and of course, you never want a child to be hurt or abused in any way whatsoever. But I think it’s important to be very careful in how we handle that for them. I hear people saying that the child will never be the same again, and even worse, the child hears them say “you’ll never be the same again”, “you’ll never be able to live a normal life”, “how are you going to live a productive life when that’s happened to you?”
Now, if you say that to a child, the child is going to believe it, and the child is going to take that on as they grow older. Instead, we’ve got to embrace that child, let that child know that they’re loved and that they’re not broken. Yes, recognise that they’ve had a bad experience, but also recognise that they can move on from that with love and support around them, and teach them self-love and help them to understand that it wasn’t their fault that it happened.
We need to understand that sometimes when we think we’re helping kids and people, we’re not. We’re not helping them if we’re telling them that they’re a victim, that they’ll never be the same again. Because they can be the same again.
We are what we think about
It’s important to remember that we become what we think about. So if you’re thinking about blame, you’ll be consumed by it. It’s what you choose to think about that helps you then become what you’re going to be.
Our thoughts create our reality. For example, if I woke up every morning thinking about what happened to me when I was seven years old and I tell myself “oh poor me”, and I dwell on being a victim, where would I be? I’d wallow around in self-pity all day, that’s where.
But I don’t do that. I look for all the good things in my life, the friends I have, the people that support me.
Now, not everyone has that family support, but regardless you’ve got to look in your life and find where you can get that support from, and look for those good things and think about those.
There’s people in life that have had the worst experiences and they become the most amazing fruitful, productive members of society. So it’s not the situation you’re in, it’s how you respond to that situation.
Acknowledge it, but leave it behind you
Think about a speed boat on a lake. You’ve got to leave it all in the wake. The wake of the boat is just the trail that’s left behind, and nothing more.
We can use our past to help us, and we learn from it, but that’s all. It’s really there for is for us to learn lessons from and then move on.
My 21 day challenge to you
If you’d like to read or hear more, then I cover more of this in my book – The Happiest Man in the Universe.
Either way, here is my challenge to you. And it’s all about letting go of blame and leaving the weight behind.
It’s simple. For the next 21 days I want you to practice not blaming anyone for anything, regardless of what they do. If someone cuts you off in traffic, let it go. Don’t get mad. Continue with your day as if it didn’t happen. Or, if something goes wrong at work. Recognise that it happened. Don’t look to blame and shift your focus to what needs to happen to move forward from it.
And that’s it.
Practice acceptance rather than blame and see how it changes your outlook on life.
