3 Ways To Take Responsibility and Stop Making Excuses

By Sheree

“He Hit Me!”

Oftentimes as children, we would find someone or something to blame to circumvent punishment for a misdeed. No matter if we participated in the initial tauntingly-like behavior or not, there was always someone else to blame. Unfortunately for many, that same mentality infiltrates into adulthood.

By now, you should be able to attest to some measure of having your feelings hurt by at least one individual. This may be a hard pill to swallow, but I would do you a disservice if I didn’t tell you the secret to getting over it.

The secret is…
wait for it…
GET OVER IT!

No one wins when you play victim. Innocence only makes you feel better. If you would be honest with yourself, you will admit that you have done things that exhibited less than stellar-like behavior. Allow me to give you three examples of taking responsibility for some of the things that may warrant sympathy, but not necessarily the mentality of a victim:

1. Your boyfriend/husband cheated on you. Infidelity is NEVER acceptable, yet it happens to the best of us. To be honest, all of the boyfriends I have had in the past have cheated on me. Nevertheless, that does not give me a pass to point fingers or cry victim. My indifference when it came to relationships cost me and I have owned up to that. Likewise, you have to take some ownership for what you’ve done or didn’t do to aid in the cheating process. Did you overlook the signs, neglect your wifely duties or give him the impression that cheating was acceptable? You are not the first person to get cheated on. Wipe your eyes, take the chip off your shoulder and welcome the healing process. There is a peace one can have when they give their heartache to Jesus and allow Him to salvage broken hearts. No matter how bleak the circumstance, there is life after a cheating mate and it has nothing to do with revenge.

2. You were abused sexually, verbally, emotionally, physically or mentally. Abuse in any form affects your thought processes and can hinder your ability to decipher between what is right and wrong or acceptable versus unacceptable. You didn’t hold up a sign that said, “Abuse me.” So now what? Do you wallow in self-pity or fight to overcome the scars within? I know firsthand that healing is easier said than done. Regardless of what was done to you, taking responsibility for what you have done since the initial abuse took place is an unwelcomed challenge. Yet, it is imperative that you conduct a self-inventory into whether you taunted your husband with demeaning words and he retaliated with his fists. Did you grow up in a household of verbal abuse and then repeat the cycle in your own household? If you were abused as a child, did you venture into a life of promiscuity as a teenager and, subsequently as an adult? No, your father should not have sexually assaulted you and perhaps you didn’t realize how valuable intimacy with you really is. Nevertheless, it doesn’t excuse you from repeating the cycle of abuse or exposing your children to what you don’t want to happen to them. Abuse is absolutely, positively wrong. Now that we have established that fact, are you going to allow someone six feet under to hold you captive forever?

3. You weren’t granted with a fresh start. You had no way of choosing your birth parents. Maybe there weren’t enough silver spoons for you. Perhaps your single parent household made you feel disadvantaged or the lack of real parenting made you irresponsible. I’ll take it a step further and consider the teacher that tried to hold you back, the homeless shelter you lived in, or the boss that seemed to have it out for you. Run out of people to blame yet?

Every circumstance you could possibly think of that caused you to falter, someone else survived and overcame that circumstance. Yes, you have a right to have bouts of displeasure. Life is full of disappointments, but is no fun if you hide your heart in a cocoon. I know others have hurt you and you feel like you didn’t deserve the treatment you have received, but at some point there is a mirror you must face that wants to know what are you bringing to the table?

I’m glad you read this far, because it means you’ve learned a lot of good information that will help you when put it into practice. Here’s what I want you to do next…

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