Responsibility vs Blame

These days I am remembering a relationship I had some time ago. I used to think that the other person was responsible of any feeling I had about any situation we live, I used to blame him, I used to think that it was necessary he changed his behavior about me. But no, I was wrong, I was responsible for any feeling I had, and only I had the power to improve the situation, at least I had the power to change my behavior, giving to the relationship a bit of light and other possibilities to solve our problems.

It is easier to blame than to be responsible, because when we blame we are not the owner of the circumstances, so we are not able to take any step to solve a situation. The only thing we can do is sit and see what happens, waiting for circumstances or people to give us solutions.

This is a typical behavior of someone who behaves as a victim of his/her own life. Do you want to live like a victim? Or, do you want to write your life´s book? Do you want to be your best friend or your best enemy?

It is said that if you want something to change, first of all you have to change. So look around you, look inside you and take out whatever situation in which you have blamed or you have been responsible.

List how you feel in each situation, what the benefits were and if you helped to solve the situation how you feel behaving with responsibility.

Remember than with being responsible you get freedom and with blaming you are only a victim without any power.

Respond vs React

Lately I have been thinking a lot in these two ways to behave, and I have to recognize that lots of times I react more than respond. I suppose this happens to me because I need to learn a lot of things about myself and life.

It is not possible to go back to the past and change your life, but it is always possible to be careful in the future and choose to respond instead to react.

When we react we choose the other person to change in order to feel comfortable or happy, for example. In that case we give the power to the other person, not considering that if we take  responsibility or we think about what is happening and how we feel we always have the opportunity to change something.

When we react we go back to the past and we don´t go with the flow, we go with our judgments.

It is really helpful to stop and think how we feel in a situation and ask ourselves, why do I feel like this? How do I want to feel? What can I do? If we get used to identifing our feelings and behaviors it is possible to respond instead to react. It is only reflect, change and practice.

It is said that a person doesn’t choose the circumstances he/she lives but always can choose the attitude to live them.

Think about this every morning when you get up. Do you choose to live each new day reacting or responding to any situation  comes to you?

You have two choices

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply: “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant Why? Because Jerry was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling him how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him: “I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood. I always choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life.” “But it’s not always that easy,” I protested. “Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. It’s your choice how you live your life.”

 Several years later… I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business. He left the back door of his restaurant open And then in the morning, he was robbed by three armed men. While Jerry trying to open the safe box, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.? I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?” I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or could choose to die. I chose to live.” Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.” “What did you do?” I asked. “Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything.” ‘Yes,’ to bullets, I replied. Over their laughter, I told them: “I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it.

The only thing that is truly yours ? that no one can control or take from you ? is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.

Now you have two choices to make: 1. You can delete this message or 2. You can forward it to someone you care about…

I hope you will choose #2.

I did.

Love you all …….

Game vs Significance

Life is a game!!

Everybody has the opportunity to choose how one wants to live the experience of life. At least, we have two options. One is to feel life like a game in which we can win or we can learn. The other is to take our life too seriously. Because it is a choice, what about thinking about these two options?

Most of the times when we are playing a game, we enjoy what we do. It gives us the opportunity to smile, to be friendly, move to action and remove drama from any situation you experience. When we are taking life too seriously our body language usually reflects stiffness, we are not open to joke and when we fail we feel the situation is like the end of the world.

When we feel life is a game, it doesn’t mean we put aside the importance of our goals it is only to notice that living a life from a game perspective give us the possibility to remove drama, be flexible to change our thoughts if it is necessary, be able to choose a new way to overcome difficulties, and think in the positive side of everything happens to us.

I think that to live playing gives us freedom. It is possible to be a wonderful professional and smile at the same time. To be a lover and a friend and feel relationships with the importance they have without putting too much significance because everything in life is moving around us,  so everything change, and every day we have new opportunities to live the life, doing new things or changing the way we use to do them, and enjoy the experience of life.

 

Action vs Delay

In less than two months we will enter a new year and as every new year most of us  will set up new good resolutions. Some of these new goals are not as new as we think, because every year we try to achieve them, and sometimes we.  Have any of us asked ourselves why we fail to achieve our special goal?

Think about it and if you haven´t achieved your goal, answer yourself these questions, Do I delay actions to move forward in achieving my goal? Why do I act  this way?

Most of the times we delay to move forward because of an Underlying Automatic Commitment, but, at the same time, usually delay go hand by hand with laziness.  It is easier to postpone behaving  in a new way than to make an effort to achieve our goal.

At this point I think, Why do we wish something if we don´t commit to achieving it? (Think about it)

I give you these advises:

-        Sincerely think about take out  which are your  wishes

-        Choose one

-        List actions you can step (take instead of step) in order to achieve it

-        Give a deadline for each of these actions

-        Start, step by step

-        At the end of the walk your wish will be real