The Success Principles Series – Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life

The first topic in the book “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfield is all about taking 100% responsibility for your life.

Jack Canfield shares that one of the most pervasive myths in the American culture today is that we are entitled to a great life – that somehow, somewhere, someone (certainly not us) is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time, and blissful personal relationships simple because we exist.

But the real truth – and the one lesson his whole book is based on – is that there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live.  That person is you!

He explains that if you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life.  This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings – everything!

Most of us have been conditioned to blame something outside of ourselves for the parts of our life we don’t like.  We blame our parents, our bosses, our friends, the media, our coworkers, our clients, our spouse, the weather, the economy, our astrological chart, our lack of money – anyone or anything we can pin the blame on.

We never want to look at where the real problem is – ourselves.

He shares that taking 100% responsibility for your life means giving up all your excuses, all your victim stories, all the reasons why you can’t and why you haven’t up until now, and all your blaming outside circumstances.  Instead, you have to take the position that you have always had the power to make it different, to get it right, to produce the desired result.

You will never become successful as long as you continue to blame someone or something else for your lack of success.  

He explains that if you are going to be successful, you have to acknowledge the truth – it is you who took the actions, thought the thoughts, created the feelings, and made the choices that got you where you are now.  It was you!

The easiest, fastest, and best way to find out what is or isn’t working is to pay attention to the results you are currently producing.  It’s that simple.  Results don’t lie. 

Start paying attention to what is and isn’t working and take your own inventory.  Be honest and take 100% responsibility because if you created it, you can create something else.

Look around at your life and the people in it:  

• Are you and they happy?
• Is there balance, beauty, comfort, and ease? 
• Do your systems work?  
• Are you getting what you want?  
• Is your net worth increasing?
• Are you healthy, fit, and pain free?
• Are you getting better in all areas of your life?

If not, then something needs to happen, and only you can make it happen.

Source – “The Success Principles”