Are You at Cause or at Effect – What it means to be responsible
People are being dictated to right now and they don’t like it!
In the world, ordinary people are being dictated to because they have allowed someone else or something else to make decisions for them. Abdicating on their right to be responsible may have occurred in the recent past or a long time ago; either way they chose not to take action when action was required.
Whichever it is, our inability to be responsible will dictate our future.
The executive or manager who doesn’t make a call on an employee who is not performing, the person who allows their credit card to get out of control, , the parent who won’t give their child boundaries, the manager who keeps doing everyone else’s work and the list goes on.
Allow me share a lesson I learned years ago and frustratingly have had to revisit a number of times. For those who know me they may shake their heads and be somewhat disbelieving. I have a reputation now for being a straight talker – only in certain circumstances! Those who know me will attest to that. I can tell you where I will make a hard call fast but oh boy – I sure don’t like admitting where I can’t, for me it is around my family I have a lot of excuses and justifications for not saying what I need to say. Rambling here won’t change the fact that my silence has caused me and them needless pain. I am in that moment at the effect of the circumstances instead of at its cause!
The question I have for you is where is your pain right now, what have you not said what action have you not taken, what decision are you procrastinating on!
I remember this quote and I believe it is attributed to General Patton,
‘EITHER TAKE RESPONSIBILITY OR TAKE ORDERS’.
In the financial world, we are taking orders because we live with the rules of an economic game that are inherently invalid! We cannot expect to continue to get something for nothing; the reason for the establishment of stocks has been totally lost in the quest for greed and something for nothing. Check this documentary out and find out what is really happening
I am surprised at how many people don’t get what it means to be responsible. I was with a client recently and we were discussing an incident in their business and I asked the question, ‘So, how did you cause that to happen’ – they looked at me blankly and said, ‘I have nothing to do with it!’
Oops!
They just missed it! We are either at the cause of our lives and what happens around us or we are at the effect. After a lengthy discussion he became almost evangelical and wanted to share his epiphany with everyone. It was a tough lesson and one that has cost him, time, energy and money.
We have a saying here at Integrity and Values.Com about being responsible you may want to write this down and meditate on it, many time people say to me I don’t understand after I give it to them. I get them to read it out loud and keep reading it long after their time with us until they get it. In fact I had a young man who we were coaching ring after a few years and say ‘I GOT IT’ so are you wondering what this statement is it goes like this:
‘If I am willing to be responsible for the smallest atom in the farthest reaches of our galaxy, then what I do here and now would be different.’
Notice where your mind goes as you read that statement.
Do you start arguing with it?
Or do you get it!
In every moment of NOW we are responsible for our response to our circumstances only then do we have power over them.
When we live inside a story of blame and recriminations we are at the effect of our circumstances when we chose to ‘cause’ our occurring world we move into a place of FREEDOM and we chose our response.
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