#26 Start taking full accountability for your own life.

We are all held accountable for several different things in our life...some more trivial than others. Perhaps its a responsibility at our job, or maybe its holding someone else accountable for a goal. Whatever it is, we tend to lose sight on the most important accountability...ourselves. We can have others state their accountability for ourselves, but if you can't take your own accountability for your own life, how effective is it for someone else to do it?


Accountability is all about standards and mistakes. We have to own our choices and mistakes. Most importantly, we have to be willing to take the necessary steps to improve upon them.  All of you know that I'm the biggest believer in learning important life lessons from our mistakes and challenges. Either you take accountability for your life, or someone else will. Typically, we let them when we are most vulnerable. Not even obviously vulnerable...but oblivious to ourselves that we are. And when they do, you'll become a slave to their ideas, wishes, and dreams instead of a pioneer of your own.


As cliche as this may sound, you are the only one who can directly control the outcome of your life. I know it sounds like something from a Zen meditation reading, but seriously. We are the only one to decide that. Some might make the argument that someone else upstairs is also involved, but the truth is, our actions decide our outcomes. If I wanted a lot of money and didn't care about anything, I'd go rob a bank. If I wanted to become very successful in a big city, I'd work my way up and do it. Simple theology, really.


No, it's not going to be easy. I never said that. No one ever said that. Every person has a stack of obstacles in front of them. They're dealt with these cards and some of them are pretty crappy. But you have to take full accountability for what you are dealt with and your situation and overcome those obstacles. Because choosing not to, is choosing a lifetime of mere existence. 


I feel like by taking full accountability for our lives, we gain much more than the control of what happens. It also becomes natural to feel like you deserve more in life as your self-esteem builds and as you do the right thing more consistently. We realize "oh yeah.... this is what I deserve" and we don't let ourselves settle for less, the more we do that. Taking accountability for our life also means standing up for what we deserve. I've learned not to settle for second best when it comes to a lot of things. I've also learned to let go and accept the things that don't deserve me. A crucial part of setting standards for yourself is holding yourself accountable to the fact that you deserve the best! Don't let others manipulate yourself and fool yourself to think they deserve you if you don't think you deserve them. It all goes back to the whole vulnerability thing and not letting others make you a slave to their ideas.


Bottom line: You will feel better. You'll feel better and more self-esteem when you decide to take accountability for where your life goes and who and what you want to be part of it. Stand up for yourself.


Sometimes the biggest obstacle in the line of our dreams is not others who try to manipulate and challenge us...but its ourselves. Because, it's quite often its you that are standing in your own way, and in the way of your success. It's you that starts to self-sabotage or hold yourself back (in subtle or not so subtle ways) once you are on your way to the success of you dream of. I'm as guilty as anyone on this. 


To remove that inner resistance, you have to feel and think that you actually deserve what you want. Going back to the whole "I deserve the best" concept, you may be able to do a little bit about that by affirmations and other positive techniques. It may sound silly but its amazing how much just simple positive words of affirmation can effect the human being. I know my best friend is pretty dependent on this--and its not a bad thing, per say. But saying the little things like "it's okay", "things will work out", and "you deserve this" make all the difference. How do you accept the best for yourself when you can't even tell yourself that? But, the biggest impact by far comes from taking responsibility for yourself and your life.  


Now, I know most people think this whole concept I'm ranting about seems a little silly and that everyone innately believes what's best for them. But its the actual action of deciding what's best for you that should eventually become natural. It is often said that your thoughts become your actions. But without taking responsibility for your life, those thoughts often just stay on that mental stage. They don't become translated into action. Taking responsibility for your life is that extra push that makes taking action more of a natural thing. You don't get stuck in just a thinking, thinking, thinking, maybe..., thinking and wishing stage so much. You become proactive and aggressive, instead of being so passive. Because you know what you want and you take responsibility for what you want!


Make the best use of what is in your power. . . and take the rest as it happens.
Taking responsibility for your life is great, but that is also all that you have control over. You can't control how someone reacts to what you say or what you do. It's important to know where your limits are. Otherwise, you'll create a lot of unnecessary suffering for yourself and waste energy and focus by trying to take accountability for what you can't and never really could control. It's good to take note of this before you take action.


Overall, Aim to be the best version of yourself!
Even though it doesn't always work, doing the right thing in every situation is hard to do and also hard to always keep in mind. Especially under pressure or frustration. So don't aim for perfection. We're not trying to be perfect. Just try to be as good of a person as you can right now. And everything else will fall in place. It's all an input/outcome relationship.


When you think about why its important to take accountability for yourself, I think it's important to not rationalize to yourself that you didn't really have to take responsibility in various situations. That doesn't mean that I beat myself up endlessly about it (which I need to work on). I just observe that I have hurt myself and that's my fault. Because (say it with me now...) I have to take (say it with me....) "responsibility for my own actions". Good. Now you're getting it. And this doesn't feel good, I know. But, you become less prone to repeat the same mistake. 


Lastly. . . 


"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. . . 
Never excuse yourself."

#27 Start actively nurturing your most important relationships.

I'm lying in bed wondering two things: how do I still have the little energy mustered up to do this blog and how hard did I drop the ball on number 27 of the 30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself?

The article states to "Bring real, honest joy into your life and the lives of those you love by simply telling them how much they mean to you on a regular basis. You can't be everything to everyone, but you can be everything to a few people. Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty. Remember, you don't need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of."

Let me be real. Let me be really real. I haven't treated friends and family the closest to me the best. It's not that I take them for granted. It's not that I take relationships and friendships for granted. I learned that already. There's nothing in my life that has hurt the most than losing my closest partner and friend to suicide. Until you have experienced this, you can't fully comprehend the stinging, knife stabbing in the heart feeling that I think of when I think of losing someone close, again. Perhaps many of you reading this think in the back of your mind that I do take you for granted. I don't. Many of you have been a significant column of my being when I was falling down. I don't even need to ask for help or wonder if I'm going to crumble down to the ground; you're a permanent column of support. And I need to acknowledge and respect that more.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I get so wrapped up in my life trying to please so many other people that I don't realize the people I should be focused on more are right in front and right behind me. I'm surrounded by people who care about me. And yet, I somehow, for some reason, funnel all my compassion for others...most of the time people I don't know. I'd like to say this due to my ultra-service oriented mind and that I get too wrapped up into this, but it just doesn't cut it. There's no excuse for this and it simply isn't responsible for me to think of any warrant for this behavior. I'm taking full shame of the way I treat my closest family and friends.

Many of you friends have been a crucial part in my transition into Pittsburgh. Many of you are the reason I still have some guilt for leaving Michigan. You all think I'm living the life in Pittsburgh and that I couldn't be happier leaving the Mitten. Don't fool yourselves! Yes, I'm quite happy here and happy with my education and professional standing. Yes, I do think Pittsburgh is a much more pleasant place to live than West Michigan for multiple reasons (even if GR is rated "gayer" than Pittsburgh). But realize that some of you still in Michigan are the exact reasons I still occasionally have the "what if" thought.

Family, where do I start? The title of this lesson is "start actively nurturing your most important relationships". There's no doubt I've failed you, family. I also realize that this can't be discussed about family without talking about forgiveness, but that's a whole new blog. I'm not sure if I can ever really forgive my mother for some of the things she's done (or hasn't done) but I can come close enough to realize even though she may not realize how much she hurt me, I can move on and start to mend my half of the deal. Point is, I haven't hardly done enough to start nurturing the relationship I have with you all. I'm sick of hearing the cliche "life is so short" and wondering what if.......what if this is how our relationship ends if something happens tomorrow. That being said, I can't stand knowing if God-forbid something happened suddenly, the relationship I have with my family is embarrassing I wouldn' know what to do with myself. I'm so shameful how much I complain and complain about some of the dysfunction and lack of communication we have sometimes. This is my family. We are far from any resemblance of a typical American suburban family. But I don't care, really. If I don't owe it you, I owe it to myself to try and hold on to what's left of our relationship. I'm sorry I've been a bitter son and brother.

In one of my social work classes this week the discussion centered around the ethics and issues Social Workers around the country are held accountable to. Some of these were respect, social justice, worth and dignity, discrimination, and the one that struck me the most "importance of human relationships". We were asked to take a look at the 10 or so topics/themes and see which one stood out to us the most. It could be something we want to work on, something we are great in, or just something interesting to us. We were told to pick one and explain what that meant to us, and then ask the class to hold us to be accountable to that topic/theme for the semester--to be more competent and loyal to that Social Work issue/ethic. I chose "importance of human relationships".  I want to be held accountable to uphold this ethic of valuing and respecting every human relationship I hold true to. So many people enter and leave my life on a daily and weekly basis. Which one of those are going to mean something to me in the future? The human body needs relationships. It physically needs interaction with other human beings to survive. Perhaps it's a sign from the almighty man Himself, but the fact that we need relationships is obviously taken for granted. So then, we should decide what relationships are worth developing. I decided I want to be held accountable on the relationships I make with people and those I invest interest and time in. My time is so sparse these days and those I choose to invest my time with should say a lot.

I'm not sure exactly where this leaves me. There's a lot to this whole idea of "nurturing" your most important relationships. Then there's the whole meaning of what is our most important relationships? Does it mean those that have had the most impact on my life? The ones that mean the most to me in the future? Or the ones that I see most beneficial are right now? All of the above? I don't know. And I don't know how much repairing I can/should do before I even begin nurturing some of those. You can nurture something that's still trying to heal all you want, but unless you put some serious neosporin on that thing, there's plenty of work to be done to some important relationships before the assumption of nurturing it begins. Baby steps.  We'll get there. And to those who haven't already suffered my selfishness from my selflessness, please be patient as I figure this out. Things will work out. Everything will be okay.
Baby steps.

2012: The Year We Decide To Change Before We All Die

Recently I came across this interesting article as a response to another article. It's called 30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself. I found it really intriguing that it was a response to the previous article "30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself " in that people wanted a more "positive" way to change themselves. Too often I think we look at ourselves in the mirror and think "what can I change about myself? Lose some weight, stop running from my problem, stop spending money on going out, stop being fake, and perhaps most of all stop lying to ourself." But how can we possibly be excited and motivated to change when we beat ourselves down first with such negativity and then expect our poor fragile souls to build ourselves up by telling us to stop doing this, stop doing that. The problem, I see, is that professionals are asking us to simply stop doing this behavior that we've innately or not been used to for years and years and years and sometimes most of our lives. Example: one lesson in the 30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself is to stop holding onto the past. Well, I'm not sure about yinz, but the fact that you have trouble holding onto a certain chapter of the past certainly holds some legitimacy and meaning to that past. Is it responsible for us to just drop it so easily as put on paper? The article claims "you can't move on to your next chapter if you keep re-reading your last". Perhaps so. Good point. But sometimes you have to keep referencing past chapters to enhance the meaning of the current one or to glean inspiration for the next ones. Because after all, we do learn from our past.

I'm a strong believer in positive change. The whole generalist social worker strengths-based approach is what I thrive on. Not so much on myself, but with others. I don't like to practice and pounce on what is wrong with someone and then try to fix that. I'm not going to lie, I do that more often than strengths-based, but doesn't everyone? I'm fat....so i'll lose weight. I'm poor....so i'll find another job. No. Then everything just becomes sort of a ...oh....i'll say it...pity party. Rather, lets take the perspective of the first article and say "ok yes, you are fat, but you love your animals. Let's start to take your dog on a walk around the block once a day." Or... "Yup, You are definitely poor. But you have an amazing talent in technology. Why don't we see if anyone can use your service setting up a website, etc, etc blah blah".

In the next few months, maybe years, I'm going to focus on the 30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself.
Of course, its naturally difficult to start something new with expectations of changing your life for the better. There's that worry of "this is how i've always been". There's still a sense of negativity even with a new perspective of optimism. Example: Start being true to yourself. Immediately it implies we've been untrue and negative to ourselves. This may not sound so bad relatively, but it still makes me think about how untrue i've been to myself before I think about how to "start being true" to myself.

In any case, this should be interesting. I'm not claiming to have any answers by the end of this and certainly not claiming to fulfill these self-help lessons, but I'm willing to further explore what they mean and how someone can better understand what it means to start doing something positive in their life.

Should be fun.