There's no escaping the truth. As Winston Churchill once said, "The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.
And when it comes to our lives the simple truth is that we are where we are in life because of the choices we've made. Some of those choices may have been unconscious ones, things that we didn't really consider or analyze, but we made the decision, took the action, and here we are.
Zig Ziglar often asks his audience the question: Is there something specific that you could do in the next week that would make your life worse? Everyone in the audience will admit that yes, there is something that they can think of that they could do that would make their life worse.
He then follows it up with the question: Is there something specific that you could do in the next week that would make your life better? The audience will again realize that they can think of things that would make their life better.
Zig then lets them know that they just stated that they have the power to make their lives worse or better. For them, as well as for us, it's a matter of our choices. Even if our lives are not the best, even if they are total disasters right now, there are things that we could all think of that we could do that will either make things worse or better.
For most of my life I have been pretty much on autopilot. My decisions were based on what seemed to be right, or at least convenient, in the moment without any real thought as to why I felt the way that I did or if convenience was the best course. I made a lot of decisions and did things that weren't always the best. As a matter of fact, some of them were really stupid and I regret the things that I have done that caused pain for others and myself.
But I accept the fact that I made those choices, I did those things, and I caused those results in my life. Where I am at this point in time, and what I have, is a product of the beliefs, thoughts that I've had and actions I've taken up to now. If I don't like where I am, and even if I wish I could point my finger at someone else, it doesn't change the fact that I'm responsible. At no time in my life has anyone ever put a gun to my head and forced me to do something against my will. And even if they had, I would have still had the choice.
But it doesn't do me any good to look at my life and get bummed out about it. Spending a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and beating myself up with blame and guilt won't fix anything. And when I finally accept all the responsibility there's some very good news that comes out of that realization. The truth is that if it really is all about my choices, then I can start making better ones.
If I've been running on autopilot, pretty much ignorant of the power I have to take control of my own life, I can change that. I can stop blaming my parents for how my life turned out. They are just people and so they are just as flawed as the rest of us, and even if they contributed to some of the wrong beliefs and thinking that I developed as a child, it's time for me to question those ideas. I especially have to start questioning the ones that may be limiting what think I'm capable of doing with my life.
In other articles I've talked about the concept that we formed beliefs that influence everything in our lives when we were children. And because we were young we didn't have to capacity to view things objectively and rationally. We reacted to what we heard and saw emotionally and those experiences and lessons have become part of who we are today. At the time we weren't able to step back and rethink what we learned, so we just accepted it.
But that's not the way things are today. Today we have the opportunity to take a good hard look at our lives and ask the question: Is this really what I want for my life? These may be the results that we have gotten up to this point, but are they the ones we want to continue to get? And if the answer is no, then we have the ability to make new choices.
What we have in today, the results and conditions that exist in our lives, are neither good nor bad, they just are. It's what we've been able to do based on what we believed up to this point. There's not point getting bogged down in guilt, we have to accept that our life is the way it is because of what we believed, thought, and did. The past is just exactly that, the past. We can accept both the responsibility for where we are and for where we are going.
The Bible says that the heart, or the subconscious, is deceitful and wicked and that no one can fully know what is in it. But it also tells us that our hearts are exposed by the words we say and the results that we get in life. So while we may not be able to figure out exactly what is lurking in the dark recesses of our minds, we can begin to understand some of it out by looking at the current state of our lives.
And while it may be fun to start looking at everyone else's lives and picking apart their fruit, the only real benefit for us is when we start inspecting our own. If we aren't where we would like to be in any area of our lives, in our relationships, careers, finances, or health, then all we have to do is look at what we have. Examining our current results will tell us a lot about what we have believed up to this point.
But now the hard part begins. Once we look at, acknowledge and accept what we've created in our lives so far, we have to make some decisions. Do we want things to continue as they are? Or are there things that we would like to change? What do our results tell us about what we currently believe?
If we don't want our lives to stay the way they are, then it's a matter of replacing our old ways of thinking with new ones; ones that will help us change our thinking and our actions, all of which will lead to better and more desirable results. It sounds simple, but it may not be. The time and effort that it will take to change the very things that have taken us a lifetime to develop and that have governed our entire lives could be considerable.
But what's the real choice? If we want things to change, then we have to change. Nothing in our lives will get better if we stay the same. As someone once said, "The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same things but expecting different results." The promise is that when we change, everything in our lives changes as well.
Some of you may be wondering, "But what about events that happen in our lives that are beyond our control?" The other simple truth is that those kinds of things happen to everyone. How we choose to react to those events is what will make the difference for us. The same event can be a tragedy for one person and a triumph for someone else. The deciding factor isn't the event but the reaction to it. It's the choices we make that determine whether something will hold us back or help us move forward.
As we accept the responsibility for everything in our lives we may initially feel a bit overwhelmed. But it's not about blaming ourselves, or anyone else, for our results. It is really all about realizing that we have had a lot more influence than we might have thought. And by recognizing that fact, we can take full responsibility, and therefore also greater control, over where we go from here.
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