By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 7
Choose To Raise Your Standards & Acceptance Levels
Now Put Yourself On the Line!
Begin Putting Yourself On the Line Right Now!
Choose to Use ‘Must’ Language
How to achieve ABSOLUTE POWER
KOLKATA: ‘Everybody here has the ability to do absolutely anything I do and much more beyond. Some of you will and some of you won’t. For the ones who won’t, it will be because you get in your own way, not because the world doesn’t allow you’.
– Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway
Why and how would you like to be in control of your life and the results you create? How can you be in a position of power to change whatever is not working in your life? To be able to change the people around you, the results you produce and even how you feel? Sounds too good to be true? Not at all.
Most people believe that power and control are limited to a fortunate few who are either born into power, or acquire power through exceptional talent, business acumen or lady luck. They tend to believe (and we’ll prove them wrong) that the rest of us are destined to be buffeted by whatever winds of change swirl around us. Economic slowdowns, recessions, company takeovers are the common winds of change.
So, the masses with conventional wisdom find themselves helpless and dependent on outside circumstances in their life. And they think, ‘It is only the boss who is in a position to decide if my salary gets an increase this coming year’. ‘It is the policy of the government on interest rates that will determine my business’ sales’. Even those who own their business (who should be in control) may actually believe their success is dependent largely on the kind of staff they can get nowadays. Heard this one before? ‘Sigh, if only I can get good and loyal staff, my business will boom’.
Accepting Absolute Responsibility Provides YOU Absolute Power
Actual truth is that you do not have to have money or be in a top position to take control over what happens. In fact, people at the helm can also lose control…and with much bigger consequences. Look at the CEOs who watch helplessly as their company profits nose-dive in a bear market. Or the US Army Generals when they invaded Iraq and found that instead of being welcomed as liberators (as they had been led to believe), they were regarded as invaders. Were they, the high and mighty in control? Not at all! So, big fish or small fry, everyone has the power to take charge of, and change anything in their life, right now.
The true secret is to accept absolute responsibility for whatever happens. That’s right! When you take full responsibility for whatever happens, it means you acknowledge the fact that you have created whatever happens. If you created it, then you have the power to change it. So, taking absolute responsibility for something puts you in a position of absolute power. Yes or yes?
Motto: The extent to which you take responsibility over something is the extent to which you have control over it.
For example, if you can accept responsibility for your low pay, it means you acknowledge the fact that it is your actions and decisions that have resulted in your low pay. It could be that you are not creating enough value to be paid more, or you have not demonstrated your true value to your boss, or that you chose to work in a company which does not recognize your true value.
Whatever issues you face you must accept responsibility, you have to put yourself on the road to do something about it. You can either find ways to create more value by going beyond what is expected, make yourself more valuable by upgrading your skills, ask for a pay raise or find another job that will pay you what you are rightfully worth. When you start taking any of these actions, your situation will change… and you will get paid more!
Providing Excuses and Blaming Others Takes Power Away from You
However, the reality is that most people act in a way that puts others in charge of their life. When something doesn’t work in their life, they choose to give excuses, blame others and complain. The problem with this is that by doing so, you are putting others in control of your life. You put yourself in the role of a victim. If you blame the economy or your stupid boss for your low pay or a dead-end job, then you are allowing both factors to control your life. As (you think) it is not your fault, you are powerless to do anything about it. You can only hope that either the economy improves or your boss changes.
This is the key reason why most people feel completely helpless, with little or no control over what is happening to them. They keep telling themselves, ‘The recession is to blame for my financial problems’. ‘Because of my stupid company and colleagues, I feel miserable everyday’. ‘My children are so lazy, they drive me up the wall.’ ‘I have no time for myself, everyone keeps on hounding me.’ ‘The customers give me such a hard time, and they are so unreasonable’. ‘My husband makes me mad…’ ‘My spouse is old fashioned…’ And so on, and so forth.
‘Others must change or circumstances must change…before things get better for me’… Now, is this really so? People who believe themselves to be victims say that the only way for their life to change for the better is if other people get better, and if the business or social environment improves. ‘If only I had more time’. ‘If only my husband could be more understanding.’ ‘If only my boss would die!’ ‘If only my son could be more inspired.’ ‘If only I could get better customers’ is the litany of common excuses. As long as you keep thinking that it is not your fault, and that something else might change, you will continue to feel helpless and powerless. By continuing to play the victim, you will be totally at the mercy of your environment. And, guess what? Most of the time the outside world will not change… not until you change first! Yes, and when you start to change, it’s like taking the blinkers off.
How Do So Many People Choose to be Victims?
Then why do so many people choose to play the role of Victim? You may read and hear about these people everyday. You also read about the poor guy who got retrenched after giving his best years to his company. The wife who gets abused continuously by her drunken husband, the poor businessman whose business became a casualty of the recession. The poor couple who were swindled out of their money. I don’t mean to be inert and heartless but as long as these people convince themselves that they are the victims of circumstance, then they will never be able to take charge, learn from their experience, or move on and change their lives for the better.
Several of our friends fall into victim mode from time to time, and I know that I have been guilty too. Yes, it’s so easy to slip into the victim mode. Do you have friends who keep on bitching about their employer or colleague, spouse, society at large, or the government? How about you? Have you ever felt cheated, deprived or taken advantage of? What did you do? Most of the time, we keep complaining to our friends and saying, ‘It’s not my fault!’ ‘That person was to blame!’ Why do we really do this? Well, because it makes us feel good! By playing the victim, we receive lots of sympathy, don’t we? At the same time, we want to feel assured that we were in the right and justify our own actions. Sometimes, complaining becomes therapeutic. After all the complaining, we actually feel less emotionally burdened as we get it off our chest.
Remember that while playing victim appears to have lots of payoffs, the cost of doing so is high because as long as we blame something or someone else, we rob ourselves of the power to take charge, and change the situation.
Moment I talk about taking absolute responsibility for what happens, I am not suggesting that you blame or reprimand yourself. Taking responsibility and blaming yourself is totally different. Some people blame themselves for everything – and it is not a useful or resourceful pattern.
As you blame yourself, you beat yourself up and push yourself to feel helpless and depressed once again. ‘It’s my fault that I’m so stupid’, ‘I really screwed up again.’ This is not what accepting responsibility is all about. Accepting responsibility means that you acknowledge the fact that the choices you made in the past have contributed to your present situation. So, instead of feeling bad, you put yourself in a state of possibility as you put the choice back in your own hands. So start accepting responsibility for the results you have, for how you feel and for the way you communicate. If your children are lazy and rebellious, accept responsibility for the way you have been communicating with them. If your staff are lazy and uncommitted, accept responsibility for the fact that you have not tapped into their passion. If you have no time, accept responsibility for the fact that you have not managed it effectively. If you were retrenched, accept responsibility for the fact that you did not make yourself more valuable. If you get angry and frustrated, accept responsibility for how you feel.
If your customers are unreasonable and your colleagues are not cooperative, accept responsibility for how you are communicating with them and thereby what effect you are creating. Then ask yourself, ‘What can I do differently to turn things around?’ This approach could definitely be a paradigm shift in your perception and results that you may choose to create now!!!
(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. In the next article, I will share about ‘How to take ABSOLUTE Responsibility for your results’ and after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilise concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
My #1 Amazon Best Selling book ‘Awaken The Incredible Within – Incredible Is The New Giant’ is available at Amazon in English at http://bit.ly/Awaken-The-Incredible-Within
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.
