41. Take full responsibility instead of shifting blame

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset. This channel is for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible in life. Today, we’re talking about a very interesting topic, or rather, a concept that I recently discovered for myself. It’s about the concept of taking full responsibility in every situation in your life. What I mean by that is… It’s the easiest thing in the world to say that someone else is to blame for your current situation.

When something isn’t going well, it’s easy to say, “Yes, the relationship isn’t going well.” “Yes, because my partner simply isn’t investing enough in the relationship.” “I won’t get the promotion,” “Yes, because my boss has something against me and I just can’t stand up to him anymore.” “I’m not where I want to be in life,” “Yes, because I have so many obligations and somehow can’t work on my actual goals.” Everyone wants something from me.

Wife, kids, friends, family, and so on. That’s why I just can’t move forward. It’s incredibly easy to shift the blame, and at first, it even seems like you’re happier because you think, “Wow, I’m not to blame.” But I’m absolutely certain that, in the long run, this leads to a compounding effect, so to speak. It builds on itself, and you become increasingly unhappy because you automatically slip into a victim role in every situation. You fall into a victim mentality.

My own experiences with blame

You become a victim of the situation and feel controlled by external forces. It seems you have no influence and cannot make progress in life. I actually went through phases in my life where, let’s say, if something didn’t go well, I immediately blamed someone else. Basketball gave me an example: winning made everything feel great. I was happy, the team had won and everything seemed perfect.

When we lost, I immediately looked for someone to blame. Yeah, you could have passed better, you should have passed at that moment, you should have made the basket, and so on. It was incredibly easy in that moment to say, “It’s your fault.” I never looked for the fault in myself. Beyond team sports, I noticed the same habit elsewhere in my life. When something went wrong, I looked for someone to blame.

For example, at my own company. We were working on client projects. In one situation, an employee failed to satisfy a client, at least from my perspective then. I was in a certain mood then, so I confronted the employee and said, “Hey, why did you do that? You’re to blame for the client being unhappy, for the fact that we might even lose them in the long run. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I could have resolved it.”

Responsibility within the company

At the time, I wasn’t even aware that it was actually my responsibility to prevent a problem from arising in the first place. And if a problem does arise, I don’t want or need to find someone to blame right away; I need to solve the problem immediately because it’s urgent. Despite this, I then increasingly looked for someone to blame in other areas of my life—whether in my romantic relationship, friendships, or family. Whenever something went wrong, it was always someone else’s fault.

And that’s the compounding effect. You build everything up on top of each other, and at some point, you just feel like you’re being controlled by external forces. You’re a victim of the situation, you have this victim mentality, everyone else is to blame, the world is so evil. It’s not your fault. At some point, I realized that I was actually overdoing it with the blame-shifting, and after listening to various podcasts, I personally discovered the concept that I simply think I’m fully responsible for every situation.

Limits of one’s own responsibility

Of course, it can’t be anything, to put it bluntly, idiotic. If a bomb goes off somewhere, or a mindset takes hold, then I’m not to blame. I’m talking about rational situations. For example, something goes wrong and I could have avoided it. As always, I’ve prepared a few mindset tools for myself, which I’d like to share with you again today. First and foremost, I think it’s incredibly important to recognize the situation and awareness. Something is going wrong, and I need to acknowledge that I’m slipping back into the mode of shifting blame.

Identify problems and talk about them

I didn’t get the promotion. For example, we have performance reviews once a year, I didn’t get the promotion, and somehow my boss is to blame for not being promoted. Or something’s going wrong in a relationship; my expectations weren’t met, and I immediately blame my partner. Once I’ve recognized this for myself, once I’m aware of the situation, then it’s crucial. If, for example, I realize that another person is involved in this situation, then the most important thing in that moment is to say, okay, I need to communicate with this person.

For example, with a partner, I might say, “Hey, I actually thought this and that would happen, but you behaved like this and that. How did that happen?” And then I try not to immediately blame someone, but rather say, “I thought that would happen, but something else happened. How did that happen? What can I do to prevent us from getting into a similar situation again in the future?” And I also consciously say that I am responsible, whether it’s true or not, because that forces me to take action. That’s the next point: I do something about it.

Actively seek solutions

I won’t let the situation simply happen and then nothing more be done about it, letting it get worse. Instead, I’m taking a step to say I’m going to do something about it. And you can even take it a step further and say I’m going to do something creative about it. I have a really cool or interesting example, some of my friends still remember this from back in the day. For my undergraduate studies—back then, the diploma program had basic and advanced studies—I took quite a long time to complete the basic coursework, which was very uncomfortably long. But I still wanted to finish my degree within the standard period of study.

At first, I had to acknowledge that I’d taken far too long. But I didn’t want to say, “Okay, it doesn’t matter now, I’ll just let it slide.” Instead, I thought, “Okay, I want to finish my main course of study as quickly as possible, much faster than the university originally planned. So that I can complete it within the standard period of study.” I forced myself to be creative; Choosing courses strategically helped, including scheduling them around the first or second exam date. I researched when the exams were, and so on.

Creativity in the face of challenges

Creativity became necessary. I can recommend this to everyone: when a situation arises, don’t just accept it, but also commit to approaching it creatively. Creativity, of course, can’t be planned, which is why it’s incredibly difficult to give you a template or a plan. Instead, try simply saying, “I’ll try to solve this creatively,” whenever a problem arises or simply occurs. Once you’ve taken these steps—situation awareness, recognizing that there’s a problem or a challenge in a particular situation, and perhaps even refraining from blaming someone else—you’ll need to consider other options.

This situation, awareness paired with communication—I talk to the other person about it if another person is involved—and then in the third step, to say, okay, we’re going to do something about it now, or especially, I’m going to do something about it. That’s the key; we’ve discussed this several times in this podcast. You take action, and if possible, even creative action, because that challenges you mentally to solve situations creatively. This also brings a positive mood, which is helpful for future problems as well.

Regaining the ability to act

But once you’ve taken these steps, you no longer have the urge to say, “Everyone else is to blame for me being in this situation.” Instead, you take full responsibility at all times. You know only you can solve the problem, and believe me, you’ll be much happier because of it. I’m absolutely convinced that if you don’t do this, if you just let things slide, let problems slide, thinking everyone else is taking care of it, that you can’t do anything about it, adopt a victim mentality, and so on—it all builds on itself, and in the long run, you’ll become incredibly unhappy.

I was recently talking to someone about this whole “taking full responsibility in every situation” thing. They told me, “Yeah, it’s totally stressful when you always think you’re responsible for everything that happens—for raising the kids, for the relationship, for the job, and so on and so forth.” So, I think it certainly sounds stressful at first, but quite the opposite is true: you feel better because you don’t get into that mode of putting off problems and letting them grow bigger. Instead, you solve the problems directly.

Address relationship problems early

I have a problem in my relationship. Before blaming my partner, I first examine my own role. Problems left to fester in a relationship tend to grow over time. I’ve never experienced a problem simply disappearing; instead, after years, you talk about it, and then the bomb explodes, and you’re totally unhappy. It seems as if it can’t be solved anymore, even though it was originally just a small problem.

Therefore, it might sound stressful at first to take full responsibility for everything in life, but believe me, it’s incredibly good and helpful to identify problems from the beginning and solve them, to look for the root cause within yourself first, to find the solution within yourself before completely projecting everything onto others. Perhaps a contrasting perspective: I’m only talking about, let’s say, meaningful problems here. If, to put it bluntly, a method works somewhere or a bomb explodes, I’m not to blame for that. I’m really only talking about, let’s say, everyday situations.

What we can influence

Of course, there are external factors over which I have absolutely no influence. But I’m 100% certain that in everyday life, most problems can be approached by saying, “It’s my fault. I want it solved as quickly as possible.” There’s a great quote I’d like to share with you: “It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable,” by Molière. I find this quote incredibly interesting because it perfectly captures the essence of the matter. It often refers to the things we don’t do. That’s usually the case with problems: we simply shift the blame and do nothing about them. We’re stuck in this victim mentality.

Taking personal responsibility in everyday life

Alright everyone, as always, a very short Project Mindset episode. I hope you enjoyed it. It was important to me to simply share with you today that you can take full responsibility in any situation and that thinking this way isn’t stressful. On the contrary, once you acknowledge that you are responsible for this situation, for this problem, and immediately address it, you will definitely be happier in the long run. As always, I hope you enjoyed the episode. If so, please subscribe to the channel and tell your friends and family about it, because that’s the only way the channel can continue to grow.

Thank you for listening and until next time, don’t forget, mindset is everything.