Taking responsibility for your current situation can be difficult to do if you feel that everything that is wrong with your life is somebody else’s fault.
Someone with a weight problem might say that they’re overweight because there are too many fast food outlets around that tempt them, or someone in a bad relationship might say that they pick bad relationships because they were abused as a child and they just end up in the same situation over and over again.
It is kind of confronting when someone says that your current situation is 100% your fault, and it took me a long time to really believe this to be true.
No, you don’t choose to have fast food outlets everywhere and you don’t choose to be treated badly, but what you do choose to do is react in the way you do.
For example, there are plenty of thin people who live near the same fast food outlets. The difference between you and them is that they choose not go eat there as often as you do. You can choose to limit your fast food consumption to one day a week.
There are millions of other people who have been abused as children, but they don’t all find themselves in bad relationships.
On the other hand, I was never abused as a child but I found myself in a bad relationship – so what caused my situation? It certainly wasn’t abuse as a child!
If you find yourself in a bad relationship, you can choose to leave that relationship, you can choose to stay or you can choose to work on fixing it (if possible). You can also choose to avoid people who are likely to treat you badly, or you can choose to love yourself so that you can find someone who can love you even more!
Here is another example: I work with people who are constantly whining about where we work, how bad their job is, how terrible management are – but they still continue to work there and they’re not looking for employment elsewhere!
They have three choices. They can continue to put up with a job they hate, they can learn to see the positives of working there and be grateful they even have a job, or they can find a job elsewhere!
Until one starts taking responsibility for their situation they will have a lot of trouble making the changes required to improve their life.
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