“The victim mindset dilutes the human potential. By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them.” — Steve Maraboli
Last week my mom had an accident in the gym.
She dropped a weight on her foot and cut off the top of her second toe.
I'll spare you the details, but let me just say that I'd prefer an unsolicited 🍆 pic over an unsolicited bloody toe pic any day...🤮
It's healing fine and she most likely won't suffer from any long term complications afterwards, so no need to fret.
Anywho, I was telling this story to my spanish teacher during our lesson yesterday when I realized that I didn't know the verb for "to drop".
He laughed and said, "In Spanish, we don't like to take the blame...so instead of saying 'I dropped it' we say 'It fell' (se cayó)." 🤔😂
I've been thinking a lot about personal responsibility lately, so this learning seemed quite serendipitously timed.
It's much easier to avoid accountability, to say "I don't know what happened! That weight just fell out of nowhere!" 🤷🏼♀️
Than it is to say "Yeah, I totally wasn't paying attention and dropped it on my foot." 😬
No one likes to admit that they have contributed to their own crappy circumstances.
But, when we DO admit that we are (at minimum, partially) responsible for our current situation, we get to benefit from all the mistakes that led us there.
👉 We get to identify the stuff that doesn't work, so that we don't waste time doing it anymore.
👉 We get to build gratitude by looking for silver linings and resilience by acknowledging our strengths.
👉 And we get better at planning ahead for obstacles, so that the next time we are in a similar situation we can be more successful (or should I say, more careful 🙄).
But when we point fingers at everything and everyone but ourselves, we miss out on the opportunity to learn and to grow.
When you insist that "nothing works!" When you claim that your "metabolism is broken!" When you swear that you "can't lose weight!" When you say "Se cayó!"... ...what you think you are saying is: "It's not my fault!"
👉 What you are actually saying is: "I'm powerless!"
But when you stop deflecting and start accepting responsibility for your situation, you also get to step into a place of power.
You get to say "I was doing/thinking/believing ____ but NOW,
I can do/think/believe something different.
So, if you've lost and regained the same 10 pounds more than 3 times, then I guarantee you are doing one or more of the following: ✅ Your exercise routine is 70% or more cardio activity ✅ You’ve cut out at least one entire food group (sugar, carbs, gluten) within the last month ✅ You've signed up for more than one 30 day bootcamp, 10 day detox or other short term "challenge" in order to drop weight quickly ✅ You've said "yes" to a request from someone at least once already this week when you really wanted to say "no" ✅ You've already gone back on your word on something that you said you were going to do this week (wake up early, get in a workout, skip your afternoon Frappuccino) Am I right?
And if you are ready to OWN UP to those mistakes,
👉 then you will also have the opportunity to do things differently.
You will have the power to change your situation.
But it starts with taking responsibility, because that weight didn't fall all by itself.
P.S.
If you want to know what to do instead of repeating the same mistakes above, then tune into the live session I've done on Instagram and my FB business page.
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