It Is Not Your Fault

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Published by Rachelle Disbennett-Lee
Sunday, December 2, 2001
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My good friend Andy and I love to go shopping. Andy is a self-proclaimed shopping expert and I believe actually loves to shop more than I do. Andy is fun to shop with because she helps me look for things and has great taste; she likes the same things I like!

On our shopping excursions, we often play the game, "It is not your fault." The game is very simple. Whatever happens is not our fault. For example, I tried on a suede skirt that I loved, but after checking the price decided not to get it. Instead of putting it back where I got it, I just put it on the rack of cloths nearest the dressing room. After shopping for a while, I decided I could not live without it and we went back to get the skirt. It wasn't where I had put it and it wasn't where I had found it. Come to find out someone else had not put it back in the right place after they had tried it on either.

Thus the game began. Andy consoled me with all the reasons why it isn't my fault that I couldn't find the skirt. After all, it isn't my job to put it back in the first place. It is the job of the employees. And it isn't my fault that someone else didn't put it back where it was suppose to be and on and on. Any excuse she can come up with that absolves me from responsibility works. The game is to come up with as many reasons as possible as to why it isn't my fault. While we are playing the game, we laugh like crazy because it is so ridiculous. Of course it was my fault for not putting the skirt back or at least giving it to someone that knew where it went. The game is funny when it is just a game.

The "Not Your Fault" game has a funny bent to it except that for many it isn't a pretend game. It is how they play their life. Many people refuse to take responsibility for what happens to them. They blame their parents, teachers, bosses, partners, the school crossing guard. Everyone else is to blame for whatever isn't right in their life.

I used to play this game until I finally realized that by playing I was the loser. When we decide other people are responsible for our lives, we give our power away. What we are saying is, "I am not in control. They are." When someone else has the responsibility, they also have the power. Once we decide to take responsibility for ourselves and how we handle what happens in our life, we take back our power. We can begin to create our lives to be what we want them to be. Not leave it up to fate or someone else.

Coaching

Playing the "Not your Fault" game can be funny if it is just a game and we know that we are playing. It gets dangerous when we play the game for real and live our lives with nothing ever being our fault.

It isn't even that it is our fault. Sometimes we can't control what happens to us. What we can control is how we handle it. If we are constantly looking outside of ourselves for who is responsible, we miss the chance to make our own decisions about how life will affect us.

Who is at fault for your life?

Daily Success Formula

Personal Responsibility + Choice = Freedom

Quotes

"The price of greatness is responsibility." Sir Winston Churchill

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." Abraham Lincoln

"We've gotten to the point where everybody's got a right and nobody's got a responsibility." Newton Minow

"I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity an obligation; every possession a duty." John D. Rockefeller Jr.