This month, we’re talking all about the mindsets that you need in order to have success. And by success, in this case, I’m talking about your career and money. So, one of the mindsets that I’ve noticed, and all successful people have this in common, is they take personal responsibility for their circumstances. If things are going great, they take responsibility for that. If things go to hell, they take responsibility for that.
A Major Responsibility
And one of the things I’ve noticed is that they own up to where they may have played a part in things going to hell in their businesses or their careers. But I see a lot of people out there who may be newer to this kind of a conversation. No one’s ever really talked to them about personal responsibility. They just feel sort of like I got screwed, or think “I’m a victim”, or they’ve never really been taught how to like stand in their own power. But a part of standing in your own power is being okay with admitting either when you screwed up or if you played a part in something not going well.
So, I’ll give you an example. This is something that happened to me. So, I had a situation with a client, and they had signed up for one of my paid courses. And I’d offered to do something extra. They had an event coming up and I said, “Okay. Well, let me know and I’ll share with my audience,”. So, a few weeks go by and then I did what I said I was going to do, and I shared this event.
I went on my platform, and I was like, “Hey, this person is doing this really cool thing. Go check it out.” And I got confused because I get an email from this person stating, “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe you didn’t share. You didn’t hold your end of the bargain.” And I’m like, “What? My end of the… Like, you paid for a course, you didn’t pay for me to, like, shout out your event.” I was doing that out of the goodness of my heart. And number two, I did it. And then they found out that I did it and they apologized, but there was a misunderstanding there.
But at the same time, I had to lovingly call them out and be like, “I need to talk to you about something here because I noticed something a little odd. It’s like you were expecting me to be your savior to get people at your event. That’s your responsibility. It’s your business. I was just doing you a favor. But it is not my responsibility to get butts in there. So, there was no reason for you to react that way.” And it was true. It wasn’t my responsibility to grow their business, even though I gave them a shout-out.
Don’t Be Like Most People
People do this stuff without realizing that they’re doing it, and then it’s my job to point it out. And sometimes they take very kindly to it and sometimes they don’t. But that would be an example of a person who needs to take responsibility instead of blaming other people.
And sometimes I’ll get pushback and people will be like, “Oh, Amanda, don’t be so hard on yourself,” when I own up to when I screw up or when I own up to something that didn’t go well because I’ve been sharing this stuff publicly forever. I practically made a career out of it.
But people will be like “Oh my God. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Practice self-love.” And I’m like, “Guys. This is practicing self-love. I’m not making myself feel like shit for screwing up, I’m just acknowledging where my screw-up was. I don’t think I’m any less of a person because I screwed up or missed something. I’m just looking at it as data. And I need to take responsibility.”
When you are able to do that, that’s when you realize how much power you actually have. And that’s when you’re able to make shit happen because you realize that no one’s gonna do it for you. At the end of the day, you can’t rely on other people to make you happy. You can’t rely on other people to get butts in the seats for you or your business. That’s your responsibility. You can’t expect other people to just give you money. You gotta go ask for the money.
Taking Personal Responsibility
It’s all about taking personal responsibility for what’s actually going on in your own life. And I realized that people who are incredibly successful and know how to stand in their own power, that’s what they do. They take responsibility. And they take responsibility for the good and they also take responsibility for the bad. They do not cast the blame on other people and they don’t have emotional knee jerk reactions to things.
Once you start taking personal responsibility, it’s actually really liberating because you realize your decisions can change your world.