responsibility

“Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” –George Washington Carver

No one but you is responsible for your growth. Absolutely give credit where it’s due to those who have contributed to your success. But it’s no one else’s job to look out for your success.

Sometimes you show up like you’re supposed to, and get punished for it anyway. Today has been one of those days. I had written my weekly blog post, which was admittedly not the best, but I was relatively happy with it. (Spoiler alert: it was about Resistance.) Now I know to always always cut and paste my writing into another writing app before clicking anything in WordPress. I lost 100% of my work, and it was 100% my fault.

No one and nothing, including technology, is responsible for keeping track of your shit.

Taking responsibility for everything is a stay against Resistance. It’s adulthood 101, and the sooner you get comfortable with it the better equipped you’ll be to handle other forms of Resistance when they come your way. Whatever your goals are in life, passing the buck will keep you from growing. Own it when you succeed, and own it when you screw up. How can you learn from your mistakes if you can’t admit to them? If you can’t man up and accept mistakes in humility, then it’s not okay to take full credit in your victories. Success is sweeter when it’s tempered by integrity and an honest inventory of the (often ugly and awkward) steps that got you there.

If I don’t back up this lousy post, especially after what I’ve learned, whose fault do you suppose it is if I lose my work again? I own the mistake. I wanted to throw up my hands and decide not to even post this week, but I don’t like how it feels to skip something just because I temporarily felt like a website let me down. Excuses are, quite frankly, just super lame. Excuses are nothing more than lies, another form of self-sabotage, and they get you nowhere. I messed up, so I can fix it. When I write a better blog post next week, I can own that, too.

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