10 Ways to Accept Personal Responsibility

The fundamental building block for creating a new life in alignment with who you are is taking personal responsibility. This is about owning your behaviour (thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.) and consequences. Until you take responsibility for your actions, (as well as self-judgements, you do not develop self- respect or truly respect of others.

To take personal responsibilty means you don't react to external events.  You simply act. Your actions come from your true being, that which is self-directed, self- motivated, self- disciplined, and knows and resonates with harmony.

• What does personal responsibility look like to you?
• What are the specific steps to putting this into practice?

Consider 9 Ways to Accept Personal Responsibility:

1. Be accountable for thoughts, feelings, words & actions
2. Stop using words: try, can't, don't won't, shouldn't
3. Cease complaining & blaming
4. Take nothing personally
5. Listen to heartfelt intuition
6. Live in the present
7. Use the power of intention
8. Ground yourself in nature 
9. Engage in mindfulness practices
10. Accept where the will exist, a way can be found

7 Signs our reality is shifting

Imagine for a moment, that everything we notice is synchronicity inviting our closer attention.  Consider 7 signs our reality is shifting and expanding:

1. We feel awe of everything and blessed by grace

2. We feel at peace with the holistic nature of life

3. We endure considerable challenges along uncharted paths

4.  We notice the social structures that deny the greater power of love

5.  We take responsibility for our perception, beliefs, feelings and harmony/ disharmony 

6.  We recognize we create every encounter to love and accept more of ourselves 

7.  We consciously shift energy from within, redirect it for the betterment of ourselves and others

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end to all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know that place for the first time.

-T.S. Eliot

7 Tips to achieve individual potential

Everyone has the innate capacity to realize individual potential. This can include transcendent moments of joy or peak experiences, in the many unique ways they take shape. While prolonging pleasure and minimizing pain may strongly appeal, the path to clarify and live more consistently in a state of joy is not always straight forward for everyone.  Consider these 7 tips;

1.  See everything as a teacher

Being open is about being attentive, recognizing every situation and encounter is a teacher that offers lessons to help us evolve into more of our unrecognized potential.  The process of growing and developing as a person is different for each of us.   The desire for self- growth arises as physiological needs are met, as basic safety and security are covered, and we sense something more  exists to life.

2. Uncover Talents 

Sometimes teachers, parents, colleagues and your nearest and dearest point your talents out to you.  Even strangers may share their observations and encourage you to move in certain directions. Often you naturally take steps to develop strengths and see where this guides you.  Putting talents to practice shows you what you are made of! 

3. Listen to the heart

The more you listen to your heart, the more you act from a place of love rather than a place of fear.  Acting from a place of love allows you to tune in and act on intuition and notice synchronicities. more of your potential to blossom. Your choices echo what you feel inside. 

3. Identify fears

Part of the human experience involves growing aware of your fears and why they arise. Fears and unconscious shadows are self-limiting.  So long as you do not place yourself or anyone else in harm's way, the best course of action involves facing your fears so you stop believing they define and constrain you.

4. Be unconcerned by external opinion 

Working through what holds you back is about reaching a place where you are unaffected by what people think or say about you. You are no longer motivated by how many likes or followers you get or do not get on social media.  This is about beginning to view yourself as your own authority. It requires you love yourself on a whole new level.

5. Live in integrity

Living in integrity is about being honest with yourself, being impeccable with your word. Taking personal responsibility for how you think and feel and knowing you may not control everything that happens but, you control how you respond.  You decide if you allow emotions and moods to control you or not.

6. Trust in yourself

Trust that your urges to make choices have perfect timing. You may feel inclined to change professional  course or change your entourage.  Whatever changes you feel ready to embrace, they relate to feelings, gut instincts, that are guiding you to let go of what you outgrow and evolve into more untapped potential.  This may involve a shift inside, a changing sense of prioirities, the 

7. Surrender

Let your life shine. Believe in yourself and let go. Tune into the light inside you.  Surrender to those dreams that you feel your way into right now. Step back for a moment. What happens as it hits that your innate potential is not fixed in time or space.  Your limtis are shaped by your beliefs and your level of confidence.

Most people spend their lives reacting to feelings rather than creating with them.

- Neale Donald Walsch

Change your thoughts & your life

To get different results from yourself in any area of life, you have to start thinking differently about people, relationships and situations.  Changing your thoughts changes your perception of everything and also transforms your life.

Recall that people function based on their level of consciousness. How you view the world is not necessary the same as how someone else views and understands things. Note the metaphor of 'seeing eye-to-eye' or at the same level. As it happens, everyone is not always 'on the same page.' 

When you see someone as an enemy or trouble maker, your experience has to confirm it. If you see someone as a teacher or partner or something else, evidence arises to confirm that. You get to choose how to think, what to feel and experience.

You may not like what other people do or say, but not liking how they behave is not an excuse for you to not accept accountability for how you behave. Stop waiting for other people to change, or complaining when they do not. You choose how you think and feel, not a reaction to someone else. Taking personal responsibility is everything.  This is also true for the ‘difficult’ people. The only way they will ever change is if they choose to. 

People don’t change for your reasons, they change for their own, if they change at all. Allowing negative emotion to arise does not change this. Recognizing you only control how you feel is one of the most liberating gifts you can give yourself.

Knowing what is best

At different life stages, it is common to feel lost and to ask, 'how do I know what is best for me right now?' 

People are compelled to reach outside themselves, to experience situations where they are inspired or discover they are not.  It is where they explore what life is about.

Sometimes a person benefits from a guide to help understand what it is in each place or relationship that attracts or repels.  Each teacher and discovery empowers a person to find out more him or herself.

Come what may, questions can arise. Each person forms decisions based on a variety of data available; the wisdom of the ages, the current view of Science, the highest ideals of the heart, moral guides and mentors. Ultimately, each human being is responsible for his/her own decisions.

In some ways, conscience draws attention to two kinds of spiritual questions; one relates to thoughts of what is right or wrong, linked to ingrained rules.  The other is how to be a spiritual person. That is, how does one live and act in harmony with divine nature? How does one tune into the cycles of the universe, inner spontaneity and inspiration and be aware of the divine in everything? Soulful exploration helps one expand awareness.

It is one thing to choose between good and evil as defined by the external world.  It is quite another to discern the difference between the impulses of divine nature and cravings of the conditioned ego self.  Being a moral (judgemental) person and a wholly person (who sees/acts from wholeness) are two different things. Regardless of the path taken, a guiding light helps along the way.