Are you in charge or are you a victim? Do you have control over your future or is it predetermined? You do not have control over the economy, interest rates, government regulation or income tax rates, but you can control how it affects you. Does your behavior and attitude influence your outcomes? How do you manage risks? Risks are a series of choices and it is up to you.
Doing nothing is a choice too! Many unsuccessful people do exactly that, nothing. That’s right doing nothing is a choice. I have students who do nothing in my class and fail. They made a choice! They usually do not have skills to perform and they stopped trying. They failed so many times they gave up! This attitude or behavior must change or their future will be determined by others. In the real world, they would be fired.
You are responsible for your success or failure. How do handle opportunities? School was an opportunity to invest in you. The grades you achieve in high school or college can change your situation. If you have good grades, it is more likely you will be admitted to a good university. Graduating college with good grades will help you get a better job. Isn’t that why we go to school?
Grades are a measurement of achievement. It demonstrates that you were determined and worked hard over a relatively long (four years) period of time. It is proof that you acquired knowledge, skills and abilities that you can apply in the workplace. Remember, school is your first opportunity to demonstrate skills and your grades indicate how well you learned them.
It may be the first time you set goals and achieved them. School offers other ways to demonstrate skills too. Sports, student government, clubs, volunteering and part time work. You are beginning to establish habits, behaviors and attitudes that will help you achieve success or fail. It is your choice! You have control over your future by the choices you make. If you think back to high school, you made a choice to study or not.
The victims of the world will say they did not have a choice. They will say it was the teacher, friends, parents, or something else that prevented them from getting good grades in high school. Even students will poor grades can change their lives by entering community college and work really hard to make up the bad grades. The students who do not take control of their lives will blame others for their mistakes.
Taking charge of your life means you are taking responsibility for your decisions. Taking charge means you will have much more control over the outcome. You recognize the choices you make affect the outcome. You will be much more conscientious about the decisions and achieve more success in the process. Many people call this achievement or goal oriented. Success makes you more confident in your decisions and handles change better.
Final Thoughts
If you believe you have control over your future, you will be successful. Taking charge means setting and achieving goals. You gain confidence from success and you are using your skills to have more success. Making good choices and decisions build confidence and judgment. Everyone can make small changes and become more achievement oriented. This leads to better problem solving skills and success. Are you in charge of your life or are you a victim?
Photo by: RichardBH
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{ 38 comments }
In everyday life we make choices if we are conscious about them or not, as you said “Doing nothing is a choice too! ”
We are responsible for our life and for everything that happens in our life but normally we blame others for our mistakes…. if we are poor we blame rich for our poverty… if we are not happy on our work we blame our coworkers or boss….
but we should take charge of our life.
Absolutely! BTW, not everyone blames others for their mistakes. If you take responsibility for yourself, you can usually do something about it.
I disagree. It is SO much easier to be a victim. Being in charge requires effort and taking risks. And if I take a risk, I may lose; how bad is that? So, instead of saving and investing (Wall Street is SUCH a casino these days) I’m much better off leasing a nice BMW and making the payments.
Now I don’t have to worry about what to do with my money each month. All I do is make payments — how simple is that? And when someone breaks the front window to steal the iPhone I forgot on the seat, and I have to pay the deductible and buy a new 5, I am so in my rights to be late with my rent. And to hiss at that unreasonable moneygrubbing landlord while blowing the froth off my $5 custom latte when he has the nerve to ding me a late fee.
Why take charge?
I hope that your comment is tongue in cheek! People who take responsibility are successful because they realize that a victim mentality does nothing for them.
In all seriousness, nobody succeeds without taking charge. But taking charge will usually involve sacrifice at many levels.
1. You have to step outside of your comfort zone. If you know nothing about investing, you’ll have to learn about it.
2. You have to take risks, knowing that nobody bats 1.000. At times that can cost money and bruise your ego, but there’s no way to take charge without the occasional misstep.
3. You have to forgo having or doing nice things (like the BMW in the story above).
4. You might even lose friends who are unwilling to take charge.
But the rewards in the long run are worth it.
I never felt I had to give up very much, but I did have to make choices. No one is going to take charge for you, so it is up to you. The success you achieve the more choices you have.
Stepping out of the comfort zone is tough! But something we must do to change.
Funny, I feel uncomfortable when I do not have some control over a situation. I just think many people find it easier to do nothing which is a victim mentality.
You have to have discipline in order to take charge of your own life, discipline takes energy and is usually a painful act.
Discipline is the bridge between thought and accomplishment and the conscious act that takes a success orientated individual and drives him upstream towards all the rewards in life.
Without discipline, you are drifting, drifting downstream towards all the pain and misery in life, an infinite amount of which most people gladly accept while they think to themselves, “Why me?”
You can create structure such as a budget, goals and a plan to provide discipline. I rely on all of these to help me.
I unfortunately know a few people that see themselves as victims. I don’t get why they don’t want to take charge and make their lives better for themselves but I guess that leaves more opportunities on the table for those that do take charge of their lives.
Victims are usually complainers who just complain and never do anything about their circumstances. I try to stay away from people like that.
Very well said. I have been working on making sure my choices are wise ones and they line up with my goals. It is very easy to get distracted or go off course. I have had this happen before and failure has resulted.
I try to keep my goals or tasks visible to me to stay on course. I remember leaving notes on my mirror or in the car or on my desk to remind me of my goals. Whatever works!
I’m laughing right now, KC, because my daughter and I were having this conversation THIS MORNING! I was telling her that she writes her own story every day. She controls the outcome. She’s not the victim in the story, she’s the hero. Write a good one!
…great minds, huh?
We all need reminders from time to time including me. We get involved and lose perspective. My children are adults and it is really neat to hear them give me the advice I gave them much earlier.
Personal responsibility is the new black.
Just think what the world would be like if everyone took personal responsibility!
So true — we’re in charge, and we are the protagonists in our own stories. Let’s not tie ourselves to a railroad track!
I agree, we must hold ourselves accountable!
I’ve always been pretty independent and in charge of my life. It’s helped me get to a good place in my career but I’ve seen how it’s not always easy for some people to do that.
I’ve worked with people who have good skills but don’t have enough confidence or aren’t proactive enough to put themselves out there and get themselves up for promotions. Sometimes it takes a bit of marketing and selling our skills sets to management if we want to get ahead, even if it’s not easy.
I agree it is a lot of things! I don’t remember any classes that teaches you how to be successful in school.
But victimhood is such an attractive place to be, even for “successful” professionals. “I’d be perfect, if it wasn’t for other people”.
I think all of us blame others for problems, but you cannot do it all the time.
I find this article to be 100% true. Those who choose to be victims become unsuccessful losers (usually). Those that choose to take charge of their life become successful members of society (usually).
My question is if this choice is a “learned” behavior? I think think it usually is “learned”, but may not be a 100% rule?
In my case, I know it was learned. I tried to instill it in my children too. Someone has to hold you accountable or you need to do it yourself.
I think I’m largely in charge but government regulations, taxes, etc. do have a tangible impact at both the individual and macro level. That can’t be denied. I think we’d live largely the same life if tax rates went up next year, but mathematically, if there’s a few thousand less in the budget next year, well, then that translates into either fewer goods, services, entertainment or savings that I would have undertaken otherwise.
I believe you can do things to minimize taxes. Whether you invest in income property or a business, you can do something about taxes. You can legally defer or change your tax obligation to some extent. I know I did when I owned income property.
“Taking charge of your life means you are taking responsibility for your decisions. Taking charge means you will have much more control over the outcome.”
I think people focus entirely too much on the increased responsibility associated with taking charge while ignoring the benefit (more control). Great post!
So many people like to blame others or circumstances. I learned a very long time ago that if I do not succeed it is all me!
Love the pep talk KC! I believe there are three types of people out there. Victims, non-action taker, and people who take charge. In the past, I never played victim, maybe when the going got really tough, but most of the time I played it safe, took no action, and enjoyed the status quo. It was fine, but taking charge is more exciting and you have a better chance of a brighter future!
Taking charge of your life really does not take all that much. It just means you take action rather than just letting things happen.
I think it’s best to take the approach that we’re in control of the decisions we make. I agree with you.
Now, I do think that there are truly some things that we don’t have control over. You noted a few, such as the economy for example. We’re also not in control over random accidents and other such misfortune. So, we aren’t in total control over our lives.
However, there is much that we can control, and that includes our attitude toward things in life.
I think we can control about 98% of what happens to us. I even think that you can do something about the remaining 2%. Too often, we ignore issues because we think they are benign.
I’m gonna take a stab and guess nobody here believes they are victims, and everyone is taking charge!
I don’t think victims see themselves as victims. Their natural response is not taking personal responsibility. They blame their circumstances on others.
Funny, I recently had an epiphany–I am in control of everything in my life, but I am driving like a drunk. This was about 2 weeks ago. Since then I’ve started to try “sobering up” and think about everything that I’m doing. First, I am quitting smoking. For anybody that hasn’t done that, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I’m loving it though. I’m saving a ton of money, and the action inspired clarity. I am starting to see other MAJOR places I am screwing up. With my finances and personal relationships. These are all things I knew I needed to do I just didn’t. That’s what it comes down to. Inaction vs action. I think I’ll read some Atlas Shrugged for a little personal responsibility inspiration? Haha good post.
Thanks, it is good to know that my posts inspire change.