Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life

An excerpt from The Success Principles
--------------------------------------------

PRINCIPLE 1
Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.- Jim Rohn, America’s foremost business philosopher

One of the greatest myths that is pervasive in our culture today is that we are entitled to a great life—that somehow, somewhere, someone (certainly not us) is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting career options, nurturing family time and blissful personal relationships simply because we exist.But the real truth—and the one lesson this whole book is based upon—is that there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live.That person is YOU.If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life. This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings—everything!

This is not easy.In fact, most of us have been conditioned to blame something outside of ourselves for the parts of our life we don’t like. We blame our parents, our bosses, our friends, the media, our co-workers, our clients, our spouse, the weather, the economy, our astrological chart, our lack of money—anyone or anything we can pin the blame on. We never want to look at where the real problem is—our self.

There is a wonderful story told about a man who is out walking one night and comes upon another man down on his knees looking for something under a street lamp. The passerby inquires as to what the other man is looking for. He answers that he is looking for his lost key. The passerby offers to help and gets down on his knees and helps him search for the key. After an hour of fruitless searching, he says, “We’ve looked everywhere for it and we haven’t found it. Are you sure that you lost it here?”The other man replies, “No, I lost it in my house, but there is more light out here under the streetlamp.”It is time to stop looking outside yourself for the answers to why you haven’t created the life and results you want, for it is you who creates the quality of the life you lead and the results you produce.You—no one else!In order to achieve major success in life—in order to achieve those things that are most important to you—you must assume 100% responsibility for your life. Nothing less will do.100% responsibility for everything.

As I mentioned in the introduction, back in 1969—only one year out of graduate school—I had the good fortune to work for W. Clement Stone. He was a self-made multimillionaire worth 600 million dollars at the time—and that was long before all the dot-com millionaires came along in the nineties. Stone was also America’s premier success guru. He was the publisher of Success Magazine, author of The Success System that Never Fails, and co-author with Napoleon Hill of Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.When I was completing my first week’s orientation, Mr. Stone asked me if I took 100% responsibility for my life.“I think so,” I responded.“This is a yes or no question, young man. You either do or you don’t.”“Well, I guess I’m not sure.”“Have you ever blamed anyone for any circumstance in your life? Have you ever complained about anything?”“Uh…yeah…I guess I have.”“Don’t guess. Think.”“Yes, I have.”“Okay, then. That means you don’t take 100% responsibility for your life. Taking 100% responsibility means you acknowledge that you create everything that happens to you. It means you understand that you are the cause of all of your experience. If you want to be really successful, and I know you do, then you will have to give up blaming and complaining and take total responsibility for your life—that means all your results, both your successes and your failures. That is the prerequisite for creating a life of success. It is only by acknowledging that you have created everything up until now that you can take charge of creating the future you want.“You see, Jack, if you realize that you have created your current conditions, then you can uncreate them and recreate them at will. Do you understand that?”“Yes, sir, I do.” “Are you willing to take 100% responsibility for your life?”“Yes, sir, I am!”And I did.