FILL YOUR HEART WITH HAPPINESS BY TAKING
O
Personal Responsibility
You can do it by using the
the how to guide to
taking responsibility for your health and your happiness
Start by making a conscious decision to become the sole person responsible for your life, and you need to make that decision now. But you can’t just say you’ve decided to take personal responsibility and then have it be true. Surrendering responsibility is a habit you need to remove, and here is how.
1.
Recognise your choices At any given time and in any given situation, you have a choice of how to respond. You can choose to focus on something positive, no matter how negative the situation. From now on, look at the choices you have available to you instead of feeling constrained.
2.
Take the blame
3.
Accept yourself and your circumstances
When something goes wrong, openly acknowledge it as your fault, even if you feel there were external circumstances that contributed. When you shift responsibility, you give up control of the situation.
Accept responsibility for who you are right now. It’s not other people who made you the way you are, but only your own thoughts and actions. Sure, many of those thoughts and actions were conditioned in you by your family, society, friends, or any other external influence. But it is you alone who had the thought or performed the action. And it is you alone who must take responsibility for them.
4.
You don’t need to be happy with your situation or your life, you need to accept yourself and the fact that you are the one who got yourself there. While negative circumstances may have had a significant impact on you and you may have experienced huge amounts of social conditioning, dwelling on them or blaming others won’t help to improve your situation.
Stop relying on external validation Don’t depend on other people to feel good about yourself. If you need external validation to be happy, you surrender personal responsibility for making yourself happy. Sure, external validation is great, and there is nothing wrong with that. But you cannot be dependent on it for your happiness. Taking responsibility for your health and happiness can be a very challenging and lifelong process, but it is necessary if you want to truly be happy. By Philippa Moss AIDS Action Council Manager Support and Education
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