When I talk to people about taking responsibility for their results, sometimes they don’t like the sound of it very much because it means that when bad stuff happens, you’re also taking responsibility for that too. Sometimes when I talk to people about taking responsibility for their results, they don’t really want to do it because it sounds like they’re going to be taking the blame for all of the bad stuff that happens in life. Let me first say that taking responsibility isn’t the same as blaming yourself. They are very different things. When you’re blaming yourself, you’re going,“Oh this bad stuff happened and it’s not fair and it’s all because of me and I got it wrong”. It’s very depressing and it’s very negative. When you’re taking responsibility, that’s more about saying,”I wonder what I could have done differently there to have got a different result. I wonder what I could do next time to make the outcome even better”. 

Taking responsibility is all about looking to the Future and seeing how you might do things in a more helpful way for yourself rather than blaming yourself when you’re looking back on what went wrong and telling yourself how badly you did. These are very different things. Here we’re focusing on the taking responsibility side of things. Blame and responsibility can seem very similar so it’s important that you understand the difference between the two so you don’t accidentally end up going into the blame game rather than the responsibility for results game. That’s the one that we’re playing here today. 

I say all of that there is an upside to not taking responsibility for your results The upside or the benefit is that you’ll always have someone or something else to blame for the things that go wrong. It’ll always be someone else’s fault so you’ll be a blamer but you’ll just be blaming anything apart from yourself. It just doesn’t make you feel very powerful and that is unhelpful the good thing about taking responsibility is that even if it goes wrong, you’ve still got power. You’re the one then who decides what am I going to do about it or how will I deal with it in a better way in the future. It makes you feel powerful and the good news is, when you take responsibility for the results and the results are good, you’re like, “hey I did that and then you get to feel really good about yourself. Taking responsibility for the results that you get is an all round really good idea. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean that you need to be completely alone when you problem-solve. It doesn’t mean you have to do it all by yourself. 

When people think of the word responsibility, they think it means me and me alone. Actually, it doesn’t take responsibility can also mean that you are active and that you take responsibility for asking for help when you need it or for looking for the right Solutions when you need them. It doesn’t mean that it’s all on your shoulders and only you can do it. Sometimes, taking responsibility involves giving a job to somebody else and letting them know that they have now got some responsibilities. But that they’re responsible to you and that they need to report back to you with results and information and evidence that they did the job that you’ve asked them to do.

Let me give you an example. Imagine that you were someone that struggled with feelings of anxiety and you might think to yourself, “Well I really need some help with this anxiety but I do not have the skills to be able to solve this problem”. Part of taking responsibility could be going to your parent and saying,” I’m having some problems with my anxiety and I think it might be a good idea for me to talk to an expert about this”. You’re giving responsibility to your parent to do some work for you and help you find the right professional for you to work with. 

When you do that, if then your parents don’t do the job because perhaps they get a bit too busy. The problem is still your problem so it’s still your responsibility. You’re then responsible for saying to your parent, “hey you still didn’t do that job yet. The one that I asked you to do can you do it? And if they still don’t take their responsibility seriously, then maybe you can head on over to the internet and find some professionals. 

Print them off or show it to your parent on your phone or your iPad. Say, “Look, here’s someone who’s based in the town where I live that might be able to help me. You can even load up www.mychildhasanxiety.com website where it tells you how to overcome your anxiety in simple-to-follow, fun, funny videos and you can say to your parents, “Look, here’s a solution. Maybe we could give this a go so you’re still taking responsibility for solving the problem that you have, even when you don’t actually have everything that you need to be able to do it. You’re still moving things forward by doing what you can. What we’re saying here is that you’re going to be proactive. Basically, you’re going to take the lead. You’re going to do the things that you see need to be done or you’re going to find someone who can help you to do the things that need to be done. 

You are driving those problems away rather than being driven along by your problems and if you don’t have everything that you need to be able to to be responsible, you’re going to find the right people and the right support to help you to become more responsible for solving these challenges because the more you do these things for yourself, the stronger you will become in your mind and the better able you will be to cope with the tricky stuff that life throws at you. When life throws tricky stuff at you, which you can guarantee life is going to throw some tricky stuff at you from time to time, we’re going to keep being positive and we’re going to be taking responsibility and we’re going to take responsibility in a positive way by moving things forward and reaching out for help when we need to. That’s what responsibility for results is really all about.

By Gemma Bailey
www.childtherapisthertfordshire.nlp4kids.org