Change begins with ownership and ends with blame. – A Life LEsson and Quote about Changing Behavior and a Life Lesson
This life lesson and quote on changing your behavior are meant to give you two important pieces of advice. First, when you declare your intention to make a change, let it be heard by more than one person. This promotes ownership. Social accountability helps your chances. If you just say it to yourself, you probably won’t hold yourself to the same standard. Let the world know. Enlist someone you trust to keep tabs on you and serve as your sounding board with regard to your efforts to make a change. Own the change and you are on your way.
How Not to Motivate Yourself to Change
Second, you must know where the motivation to change is coming from. If blame and anger directed toward someone are the driving force behind the change, then chances are you won’t succeed in altering your behavior and thought patterns. Blame makes you stuck in the mud.
The saboteur in you will want to blame others and avoid ownership. Name your saboteur and talk back to it. Know what it feels like when it’s guiding you toward negativity. Accept your saboteur’s existence, but not its influence.
You’ll just be layering one change on top of another, which doesn’t promote lasting change. Look to transform by bringing motivation to a place of love, acceptance and understanding. Once you start to make a change in the way you think or behave, the act of blaming others for your struggle, slow rate of change or past problems will undo the change.
Your efforts will turn you a full 180 degrees when blame and anger are the motivators. Come from self-love, the love of others, any positive way to look at what you want to accomplish and the change will be more real for you. Turn blame into personal responsibility. You’ve trained the world how to relate to you. Own it.
If you were hurt as a child, take ownership by vowing to do things differently because you can. Strive for compassion, or at least understanding, when you declare that you want to do things differently than you’ve were taught by the people who hurt you. Try to understand where someone you blame came from to ease the burden of mental pain. You may not fully get to an accepting place, but it will lighten your mental load as you look to make changes.
These are a few of the keys to lasting change.
(For one of my more powerful life lessons on avoiding blaming others, click here.)
