TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

I have to admit this lesson continues to be hard for me to apply in my own life from time to time. But this week as I was thinking about what I thought would be a good foundational principle to discuss in this blog and with my clients, I came across a teaching example too good to pass up.

I was flipping between ESPN and CNN as I often do. On ESPN there was the story of Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga. Galarraga had pitched a perfect game (no walks, no hits, no runs) 2/3rds of the way through the final inning of the game. For those of you unfamiliar with baseball history, to put this in perspective, every baseball team in the majors plays over one hundred games a year. There are over 30 teams. And the league has been around for 135 years. I won't even try to do all that math but suffice it to say that is alot of baseball games. Ya know how many times a perfect game has occurred in those 135 years? 20 times. 20 times in the entire history of the league. . . and Armando Galarraga needed just one out to join that list.

A sharp well hit ball was fielded by the second baseman and thrown to first for the historic out. It was a close call, but instant replay showed the batter was out by a good half a step. But Veteran Umpire Jim Joyce called him safe . . . and history was re-written. . . and Galarraga's monumental moment evaporated, in all likelihood forever.

Bad calls happen all the time. But there is a pretty strong concensus that this was one of the worst calls in the history of the league. So bad, with consequences so profound (particularly for Galarraga), that the commissioner of baseball considered overturning the umpire to give Galarraga the perfect game. (he didn't however).

What was more interesting to me than the enormity of this foul-up was the response by the individual who made the history changing mistake. Within hours of this nightmare of a blown call and within minutes of seeing it on replay, Umpire Jim Joyce went to Galarraga in tears and apologized for his mistake. As soon as the media asked its first scathing question (complete with bitter sarcasm and an accusatory tone of course), Joyce completely diffused the attack by saying simply " I cost that kid a perfect game". No senate investigations, no truth-finding mission, no committee to evaluate the evidence. He admitted his mistake and there was nothing else to say. Jim Joyce did something that shouldn't have caught my attention so easily. After all, all he did was take responsibility.

This story got national attention and not just in the sports world either. It got national attention because we as a society aren't used to seeing this anymore. In fact, its when I flipped back to CNN that I saw what we are used to seeing. I saw Tony Hayward, CEO of BP Oil responding to questions about his oil rig causing the biggest environmental disaster in US history. Here are some of the things the CEO of the company whose oil is filling the ocean at several thousand barrels a day for almost two months straight with no end in sight said:

"It wasn't our accident".

"We'll clean it up but the rig was run by Transocean"

"We have a terrific safety record"

"This device isn't failure proof"

At midlife we have a way of looking at the state of our life and assigning blame to what we don't like. Its usually around this time in life when people have the "breakthrough" moment and realize they are the way they are because of their childhood, their parents, their children, their genes, their teachers, their role models, their spouse, their ethnicity, or their gender. Its this time of life when people suddenly "realize" they need to have an affair because their spouse isn't who they thought they were or its time to quit the job without a plan and "live" for the first time. These "crises" events occur in no small part because of a failure to take responsibility for the state of our lives at mid-life. Unfortunately, far too often this failure to take responsibility leads directly to repeat patterns of disillusionment and ultimately dissappointment as we realize that we take ourselves with us when we leave! Suddenly, the new exciting relationship that replaced our spouse leaves us with similar problems. The new career is still "work". The harley davidson you bought on credit may have helped you feel younger, but you aren't and now you're just further from being able to retire.

Taking responsibility, on the other hand, is a foundational step toward changing things. Once you realize that YOU created this life it is much easier to understand that YOU are completely capable of changing it. When you are the victim of circumstances it is psychologically incongruent to also believe you can change those circumstances. Without that belief you will always have someone to blame and as a result you will also remain powerless to change your life. Taking responsibility for your life is an absolute MUST if you are going to realize real transformation in your life.

As Lou Holtz said perfectly "the man who complains about the way the ball bounces is probably the man who dropped it."

What have you been accepting as a "fact of life"? What have you been blaming on others rather than taking personal responsibility? What have you been looking outside of yourself for rather than looking inward to how you respond to situations? Maybe its time to identify those things that you have not taken responsibility for. Maybe its time to look at that marriage and ask yourself "what am I doing to create this reality?" Maybe its time to look at your waist and ask yourself "did I do this?" When you start laying claim to your life and your incredible power over it, you won't fall deep into guilt and resentment like you fear. To the contrary, there is nothing to worry about once you lay claim to what's within your power. As Wayner Dyer puts it" there's only two things in this world to worry about: things you can control and things you can't control. There's no point in worrying about things you can control because. . . well, you control them. There's also no point in worrying about what you can't control because . . .well, you can't control them." That leaves nothing to worry about. Your focus moves to exactly where it should. Those things you can actually change.

Make a list of those things you need to take responsibility for and start invoking your power by identifying what in each circumstance you can control. A good list to start is:

1) Relationships

2) Finances

3) Career

4) Living your principles

5) Engaging in activities you are passionate about

6) Health and fitness

List the things as they exist. Be brutally honest. Identify what you have done or failed to do that contributed to the current state of things in each category and then list the things you can control about each situation and exactly how you are going to make positive changes moving forward. If you do this for a few weeks, your entire life will begin to change. You will find yourself shifting your psychology. You won't speak about the faults of your wife that make your relationship intolerable but instead you will speak of what you are doing every day to fill that relationship with romance and passion.

Instead of looking in the mirror and feeling the shame of a badly out of shape body that you blame on genes, your busy life, or fast food chains, you will assess your current state of ill-health and identify what you have done to create this state and exactly what you are going to start doing to change the situation.

Congratulations, if this is a new awareness for you, you have just taken a quantum leap toward transforming your reality. Now make sure you apply this truth every single day. Create a 'responsibility log'. Practice saying " I am sorry" and "I made a mistake". Proclaim your power each morning by affirmatively stating "this day is what I will make of it" or read the following quote before you go out the door each day for a month:

"It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
— J. W. Goethe

GO LIVE ON PURPOSE!!