How to cure a case of ‘blame-itis’
Whether you are heading up an organisation, are a leader, a manager or an employee most of us have experienced the ‘Review Period’ – the sales, performance, budget, the ‘how can we improve and do better’ review. But during these assessment periods, how honest are you really being?
Do you take ownership or are you in fact suffering from a case of ‘Blame-itis’? The blame game is rife; across workplaces and personal lives the excuses for why we didn’t achieve and others did are audible.
The topline is this: Blame-itis quite simply is not accepting responsibility for any of your actions or accountability of your own behaviours. It’s about making excuses and not accepting that maybe, just maybe, you did play a critical part in things not quite going to plan. That actually it isn’t anyone else’s fault that you didn’t achieve your goals last year. It’s yours. And the thing is Blame-itis has one result – ineffectiveness, status quo, and inaction. So how do you cure a case of Blame-itis?
Take ownership
Of course we all have different baggage, backgrounds, financial situations, and stuff going on. But if you want it enough, if you are hungry enough and if you take control of owning your role in writing your story, creating your own dreams – then action does happen.
Own your successes and your failures. Own your dreams, your goals, and your behavior. Own the actions you take. Own the tribe you choose to work with, the projects you choose to navigate and deliver, the essential contacts that will absolutely transform you and accelerate your journey to success. Own the highs and the lows, the results and the failures. Own the opportunity to continuously learn and grow because only by doing this will you head down the road labeled ‘Personal Success’.
Hold yourself accountable for your actions
Whether things go to plan or not, hold yourself 100% accountable for your results, whatever they may be. It’s not about making excuses or quitting the game. It’s simply about considering that perhaps you may somehow have contributed to the end result. Hold yourself accountable, assess what you could do differently next time, and take note of what you have learnt because this will absolutely create the right next appropriate action towards achieving your ultimate goals.
Find the lesson
Don’t be afraid of failure or admitting your mistakes. When we give ourselves permission to fail, incredible lessons are learned. Failure is a chance to regroup, to learn and grow. Unless you’re really willing to learn the lesson, even if it feels uncomfortable at times, you can never move forward. Be honest with yourself – the actions you took and the choices you made. Take a moment to look at things from another’s perspective. The lesson is always there if you are open to seeing it and open to growth.
Let go and move on
Dwelling on the small stuff can be debilitating. We end-up in a never-ending cycle of ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’. Unless we let go of the blame game and finger pointing, accept what happened and embrace the learnings from the situation we are unable to move forward. The choice is yours – sit in a quagmire of excuses and the resulting sludge of status quo or accept that things didn’t quite go to plan, re-group, re-plan and move on.