How do you feel about the word Blame?
Does it get a visceral reaction out of you? Does your stomach clench up? Do you start to grind your teeth a little? Does you heart maybe beat a little bit faster? Do your palms get sweaty? Does your skin start to flush?
When it comes to blame, we all react a little differently.
I know some people who are automatic blame takers, meaning that they are quick to assume responsibility when something, anything goes wrong. Somewhere along the way they were programmed to think that they were always wrong and then act on their “wrong-ness”.
These are the people who are quick to say “I’m sorry” or “please don’t be mad at me, I didn’t mean to do it.” These are the doormats of the world.
I also know some people who are never at fault. They are completely blameless in their own minds and nothing you say or do can ever convince them of anything else. If something goes wrong, it’s because of so-and-so. Or it’s not their fault because they had “this” happen to them.
They are above the rest of us, pure and magical and never, ever at fault.
Why do I even mention these two types of blamers?
I mention it because I want you to see where on the spectrum you fall.
Are you the one always assuming the blame? Are you the one always placing blame on others? Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle?
Why should it even matter?
It matters because how you feel and act around blame can have significant influence with how you are in every other instance of your life.
Sounds a little too dramatic, doesn’t it?
Let me challenge you with this.
If you are looking to lose weight, quit smoking, eat healthier foods, lower your cholesterol or any other widely popular health based goal, then how you act around blame is going to tell me right now how, if ever, you will achieve that goal.
If you are a blame taker, if you are always the offending party, then you have a better chance of achieving your health goals than if you are always someone who places the blame on others.
However, if you are a blame taker you run the risk of falling into self-pity mode. You rely on always being wrong, so why shouldn’t it stand to reason that you fail at your goals, you’re always wrong anyway? You can never do anything right and that shouldn’t change now. Besides, since you’re always wrong, why should you even expect to deserve to achieve any of your goals?
Do you see how this scenario plays out?
So how can you change the outcome of failure for the blame taker?
The most important thing for our doormat to do is to not allow himself or herself to fall into the poor-me mode. I call this a pity party. As long as the blame taker can stop themselves from sinking down to this level, then they have the opportunity to achieve their health goals. They can do this because they are a natural at accepting responsibility.
To be honest, this type of blamer is a little too good at accepting responsibility, but at least it’s a start towards learning how to accept their own personal responsibility. Once you do this, then you are literally open to receive and achieve any and all goals you set for yourself.
Accepting personal responsibility is the very first and in my opinion, the most critical step towards achieving goals.
But what about the other side of the coin? What about the blameless, the always innocent blame giver?
Unfortunately, if you are more accustomed to giving or placing blame on others rather than accepting it for yourself, you have a very hard road ahead of you.
I find that people who are not in the habit of accepting blame for something that they have done have a very hard time changing their patterns in order to achieve a goal that they say they really want or get somewhere that they desire.
Why?
If you are not able to accept responsibility for something when it goes wrong and you are quite literally the reason why, then you will have a hard time assuming responsibility for when you are not achieving your goals because you would rather blame something external of yourself.
Let me put this another way.
When you are working towards a goal and that particular goal is something personal or internal such as weight loss, how is it reasonable to blame someone else for your failure or lack of achieving that goal?
If you yourself are not capable of putting the fork down, then how is someone else to blame?
This is the pattern that rears its ugly head for the blame giver.
So how can this be changed so they too can achieve their goals?
Start accepting personal responsibility for everything and anything that goes on within your life- both good and bad.
It may not be an easy road, but it is the only road to take for long lasting success in achieving your goals.
This is the only way to get out of victim mode- whether you are a blame taker or a blame giver. This is the only path and it begins with two simple words.
Personal responsibility.
After that, then you can worry about the next step.
