5 Ways to Own Your Results and Own Your Life

 

Girl Looking In Mirror | Andrea Piacquadio | Pexels

It is very easy to blame others for things that we are not happy about. We have all done it in our lives and some of us do it more than others. It's easy to blame others for things rather than ourselves. Maybe we didn't get the promotion we were hoping for so we found a reason to make it the fault of the hiring manager. We didn't win at a sport we were playing so we blame the other team and say they were cheating. Perhaps we've been working on writing a novel but claim our spouse has put too much on our honey do list and we'll never find the time.

Pointing the finger at someone else is an easy way to explain things that we are not happy about. Rather than take a hard look at what may have happened and what our role in the outcome and results, it's much easier to say, no that happened because of someone else. We shift the blame off of ourselves and make someone else the villain. If we do that we protect our own ego and don't have to address parts of ourselves that we're not happy about.

We didn't get the job because the hiring manager doesn't like me. Ok, maybe they don't but why? Is your performance subpar? Did you not prepare for the interview? Do you have a bad attitude at work? Take another look at that situation. You lost a sports match because the other team is cheating? Take a look at their record, and you'll find it's nor perfect. Other teams have beaten them. Other teams have found a way to defeat that team and didn't come back and complain they were cheating. Would you be complaining about that if you had won the match instead?

Instead of pointing the fingers at others, either publicly or in our own heads, learn to look somewhere else. As the song says "I'm starting with the man in the mirror".  The message there is rather than look outwork, look inward. As what you can control in the situation and how you could impact things to get the outcome you wanted. Don't point the finger and absolve yourself of responsibility. That is a way of avoiding blame because you are afraid of how it will make you look and feel. Don't be that person. Own your results and own your life.

Here are 6 Ways You Can Own Your Results and Own Your Life

Be Honest With Yourself

When things don't go your way it's normal to be unhappy about them. I won't pretend that you must find a way to be glad that you didn't get a promotion, you got dumped by your girlfriend or your book got rejected by your publisher. Those things do hurt and they should. What I will ask you to do is be honest about how you feel in that situation to yourself. Allow yourself a moment to feel upset and then also admit to yourself that you can make mistakes and that this one is yours. You must accept the outcome and your role in it to move on.

Be Objective

We know that it is easy emotionally to look outward for a reason we didn't succeed. It protects our own ego and self image. You must remain conscious of our natural tendency to do this. Instead after you've had a setback, stop and ask yourself what your role was in that outcome. Why did it occur and how could you have done things differently to create a different outcome? This process will be much more difficult, but only at first. Over time you will become good at identifying when you made a mistake and this will help you to plan for how you will act differently when presented with the same situation. 

Ask a Third Party

Sometimes it can be hard to be fully objective with yourself. If you didn't get an outcome you desired, ask a third party that you know will be honest with you. We all have that friend that will tell you that you did nothing wrong and it's someone else's fault. That's not who you're asking. You are looking for a mentor that will help you look inward and focus on what you can control. This might be a parent, spouse, coworker or anyone you trust to be honest with you, even if that means they're giving you critical feedback on your own performance.

Make a Plan

People underestimate the value of planning. Folks say things like, I like to shoot from the hip. I roll with the punches. that may very well be true and work in many situations. However, when you've built a plan and thought about how things might go ahead of time, you allow yourself to think through many possible obstacles you might encounter and how you will go overcome them. Football quarterbacks spend hours watching video of opposing defenses. They learn the question of how the defenses react and their formations. They build a plan for how to adjust their offenses in the moment. On the practice field their own teams' defense will run the other team's formations to allow the quarterback and offense to practice. By the time the game comes and the defense runs a play against them the most well prepared quarterback is ready to bark adjustments to his team and make the play.  

Work Your Plan

What good is a plan if that's all it ever is? After you've created a plan write it down and put it into action. It's important that you build your plan and execute it. If you've looked objectively back at your performance and identified how to do better, this is your chance to do better. Not only will increase your performance in the situation you prepared for, but you'll also improve your confidence. Over time there is a cumulative effect to any behavior where it moves from conscious behavior to unconscious reactions or habits. While you may be working your plan in this situation, eventually that behavior will become natural and overcoming this same challenge again becomes easier and easier.

I used to point the finger at other people when things went wrong. I used to come up with all sorts of excuses to give to my managers about why things didn't turn out well. That was never a good strategy and over time your managers will lose confidence in you. I got good advice from a coworker one time. When things didn't turn out just tell your boss, "Yes. That's my fault, I know what went wrong and it won't happen again.".  What good advice. It encompasses this entire strategy. It's honest, objective about what went wrong. It says you'll be doing things differently next time. There is really no realistically negative response your manager can have in this situation. 

Looking in the mirror and being honest with your performance can be hard. Do you struggle with taking responsibility for the things in your work and life? How is that working for you know?  Tell me what's going on! Post below or contact me!