Taking Ownership For Your Relationships

Taylor Hartman, Ph.D.

When was the last time you accepted full responsibility for a problem in your life?  When was the last time you heard anyone say, “That’s completely my fault.  I am 100% Responsible for what happened and will do whatever is necessary to make it right!”

We have created a society of victims with a cultural backdrop that actually promotes ”blame, denial and rationalization” rather than responsibility and ownership.  Today, if you smoke three packs of cigarettes a day for forty years and die of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company.  If your child misbehaves in school, you give him the label ADHD and medicate him.  If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home after too many drinks at the bar, he blames the bartender.

When something goes wrong, it is rare that someone steps forward to take ownership for creating the problem.  Even more rare is the individual who takes 100% Responsibility for creating the problem AND accepts ownership for providing a solution.  Those individuals and/or companies who pay their dues by exposing their vulnerability (“It was my fault!”) and accept ownership for resolving the problem (“How can I make it right with you?”) earn the privilege to become exclusive members of the 100% Responsibility Club.  Trust me, this club is highly exclusive and holds its members in strict adherence to principles that far exceed the general public’s expectations.

The State of What Generally Is

Unfortunately many of us have been raised in a victim society.  We have been taught by countless role models that our problems are not our own doing and that we, in fact, have been wronged.  For many reasons – misunderstood, abandoned, and neglected all come to mind – we have spent more energy seeking strategies for getting off the hook rather than facing the music when we make mistakes.

Think of most partners during divorce proceedings.  Think of driving while under the influence, public education, and major airlines.  We have been taught, and learned our lessons, well.  Most of us were very willing students.  We excuse and devalue ourselves (think many sports figures, politicians, and celebrities) rather than value ourselves as would be evidenced by stepping up to our problems and finding viable solutions.  Denying ownership continually weakens us until we no longer have the strength to even identify the truth, let alone face it.

We’ve become so accustomed to fear-based thinking that it now serves as our native tongue.  Do these excuses sound familiar?

People get in their cars late for a meeting, jump on the freeway and call ahead on their cell phone indicating they will be late as if this excuses them for leaving late. They left their office late but somehow calling from a cell phone on the freeway excuses that!

Our current culture promotes “blame, denial and rationalization” as our native tongue.  Far more people speak, understand AND ACCEPT this way of thinking than 100% Responsibility.  We must wake up and face the brutal facts that we have succumbed to and accept excuse making over keeping our promises.   Accepting this brutal truth can move us to take the necessary steps in overcoming it. CC