Distinguishing between responsibility and blame

An essential area of focus is the differentiation between accepting responsibility and indulging in self-blame. Responsibility implies taking ownership, acknowledging our part in any given situation, whereas blame tends to shift the burden onto others or onto circumstances. It’s key to remember that taking responsibility is a proactive step, a means of asserting control over our lives, unlike blame which often results in feelings of victimhood and helplessness.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Check out the Extraordinary 90 Day Journal on Amazon.com.au. Look for The Extraordinary 90 Day Journal by Samantha Leith and purchase a copy to help with journaling and introspection.
• Reflect on feedback you receive from others or from the world around you. Pay attention to any patterns or recurring themes that may indicate areas where you need to take more responsibility.
• Practice affirmations and power statements to reinforce the idea of taking ownership of your choices and decisions. Repeat phrases like I am in control of my choices and I take ownership of my life to help shift your mindset.
• Explore the exercises on courage available on Snapdrag.com Freebies. These exercises can help you face your fears and embrace your desires, ultimately leading to more personal responsibility.
• Try out the exercises from The Work by Byron Katie, particularly the Is it true? exercise. This can help you challenge your beliefs and take a more objective look at situations where blame may be present.
• Engage in journaling to reflect on and recognize what influences your actions and thoughts. Write down specific situations and ask yourself if your perception of blame or responsibility is accurate.
• Consider seeking professional help or guidance.

Timestamped summary of this episode:

00:00:03 – Welcome to the Samantha Leith podcast. With me, Samantha Leith, I have a passion for exploring anything and everything that can help us to be extraordinary. Each week I’m going to dive into a topic and explore it extensively because if there’s something that makes for a better life, I want to learn about it and more importantly, share it. And hey, you may just get the OD song thrown in. There’ll be deep conversations, fun and frivolity helpful tools for you to add to your life straight away.

00:00:33 – Random musings about anything from coffee to sex and information that may just blow your mind. This is a podcast for dreamers, believers, action takers and achievers. It’s personal development, but not as you know it.

00:00:50 – Hello, welcome to episode 29 of the Samantha Leak podcast, which is all about accepting responsibility and I wanted to add it’s like the key to authentic living, but well, is it? I don’t know if it’s the key necessary to authentic living. I think we have many, many keys to authentic living, so I’m not willing to just kind of say it’s one thing, that’s the do or die thing for authentic living, but I do believe accepting responsibility is a huge part of it. So what is acceptance responsibility? This is not going it’s just all my fault.

00:01:36 – Everything in life is just all my fault. I’ll take it all on and having those shoulders that are just weighed down with almost throwing the blame game at yourself constantly and that is really not healthy. Okay? I’ve gone through phases of my life where I have accepted responsibility and I’ve gone through phases of myself where I’ve been like, no, it is all out there. It’s everything out there that has happened to me that has caused this.

00:02:12 – You’ve probably all heard like the cause and effect thing. So how our minds work is something happens. We think something about it, we feel something about it. We react in a certain way, we take an action, and then something else happens. And you’ll hear it spoken about in many different ways, but it’s pretty much something happens.

00:02:33 – Think something do feel something, do something. Something happens around. And we go, and one of the quotes I love is from Charles R. Swindle who says, life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. And I would probably almost go it’s 1% what happens to us and 99% how we react to it.

00:02:58 – Okay? So all these outside of us things, the stuff of life that happens, we do or don’t do something and we choose in our clever glover, clever little minds whether we’re going to accept responsibility for it or we’re going to lay blame on somebody else or we’re going to be a victim, or we’re going to cut off our noses despite our faces and get all about it. We choose what we get to do about everything. Okay? Now as I said, I’ve gone through phases of accepting responsibility and not accepting responsibility.

00:03:34 – And I’m here to tell you, having done both, accepting responsibility. You know what? I can feel really crapped in the moment. Like, when I look at that increased mortgage at the moment and think, oh, I really should have had more of a buffer in my income, or, oh, I should have myself there. I didn’t do this, I didn’t do this.

00:04:00 – I could have done this. Oh my God, it’s all my fault. I’m hopeless. I did absolutely have that moment and I also had the moment of, it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s just that limping RBA and those keep putting the rates up and it’s all their fault and think, I’m going to have a lie down.

00:04:19 – I have done both. What makes better, though? Which one makes my life better? Which one makes me feel better? Maybe not in the moment, but in the long term, does which one makes me take better action or take any action?

00:04:36 – For starters, is the one where I go, you know what? I haven’t set up enough of a safety net. I don’t have enough of a buffer and that’s on me. I spent too much money on that trip. Or maybe I didn’t need that feather jacket.

00:04:51 – All of these things, me going, I could have done better. What does that make me do? That makes me go, okay, I need to reach out to somebody know, maybe we don’t need all of those TV subscriptions. Do I really need an icloud account? And a Droplex account makes me look at other things.

00:05:14 – Okay, so that’s just one example. But there’s other ways where we can accept responsibility or choose not to accept responsibility. I’ll do another one with me because this is my podcast and I think I know when I’m listening to podcasts, when I hear personal stories from the person actually doing the podcast. If I can relate to that story, the message that they’re getting across means so much more to me. So I’m not telling these stories or sharing these stories because I want to word vomit my life onto the world.

00:05:55 – I really hope that you can see there’s a point in the stories that I tell because that is my intention. Okay? I’ll go with my weight. For example, as many of you know, if you followed me for a while or you’ve heard any of my podcasts, my weight yo yoed up and down and up and down and up and down for the majority of my life. And I could 100% go, well, all that stuff started when I was really young, when my mum used to give me money and tell me to go and buy chocolate to eat.

00:06:24 – When my dad was having one of his moments in inverted commas to make myself feel better. That’s where it all went wrong. It’s all her fault. Well, when I was six, yet she gave me the money. And my six year old brain didn’t understand that maybe sitting down and eating all those polywaffles was not going to be great for me, even though it helped me ignore the scream or the drinking or whatever was happening in that moment.

00:06:51 – However, when I was 16 or 26 or even 36, me choosing to put something in my mouth or choosing not to go to the gym or choosing to sleep in or not sleep enough or whatever it was those choices that I made that did impact my weight 100% on me, dude. All on me. And accepting that responsibility and going, yeah, I need to work on this stuff, is how we have changed and how we have power. We take back the power for ourselves when we accept that responsibility. Okay?

00:07:28 – So a study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that self judgment or how we view ourselves impacts our mental health more than how we believe we’re seen by others. And this responsibility, I believe, is a really important part of that. Okay, I mentioned it earlier. We can blame or we can go into victim mode or something like that. But in particular here, I want to talk about the difference of responsibility versus blame, because I think they’re the two biggest I don’t like talking about people when they oh, you’ve got a victim mentality as much because there are some genuine situations where you’re a victim and having someone go you’ve got such a victim mentality is triggering and not fair in many, many circumstances.

00:08:19 – So I want to be really careful with how we use that term. Okay? So what are the big differences between responsibility and blame? So responsibility is about that ownership. So it’s like acknowledging that the role that we played in a situation did our relationship break up?

00:08:37 – Yeah, our relationship broke up. But how did maybe he dumped me or she dumped me, but how did I play a role in that? Was I distant? Did I cheat? Did I work too hard?

00:08:49 – Did I lie? Maybe there wasn’t anything there, but most of the times in relationships, it’s a two way street. And again, I’m not talking about anything where there’s psychological or physical abuse, okay? That’s whole other ballgame. But then on the other hand, that same situation that blame you might go, totally their fault.

00:09:12 – They dumped me. No, I was absolutely perfect partner. It’s all on them. Okay? You could do that.

00:09:21 – Or here’s another way to blame, okay? This is a tricky one. You can self blame. So that inwards blame, which is not taking responsibility, it’s playing the blame game on yourself so that’s when you go, oh, it’s all my fault, and I effed everything up. I can’t do anything right.

00:09:42 – I’m so hyped. That’s not constructive either, okay? When you can look at the role you played in any of those things, whether you got the job, did you send in that application an hour late. Did you not put your email? Whatever it is, just look for how you can take responsibility for things and what you can learn from taking that responsibility for things, because if you don’t, we’re handing over the reins to our life.

00:10:17 – Okay, do I want to think that the RBA is completely responsible for my circumstance? No. Because then that means they’re also responsible for the good stuff that I do financially and they didn’t help me on that. So accepting that responsibility for our part of things is a really key way for us to take ownership of our lives. And I’ve said that a couple of times in this podcast already and I’ll probably repeat it again because that ownership is how we move on.

00:10:50 – Okay. Next, I want to say, though, that in taking that ownership of things, if we’re taking responsibility for something that maybe has maybe a little bit negative, maybe we’re even running that fine line of that self-blaming thing, or just actually taking a logical sense of responsibility when it is negative, we need to be careful. Because any of that negativity yes, life is 50 50, but any of that negativity can start etching away at how we feel about ourselves. And as you know, I talk about the confidence stack and that any of those pieces that we kind of knock out a little bit like a Jenga block, can impact so many things in our lives. Okay?

00:11:37 – So it’s about taking responsibility for what we do have control over, not letting it get too negative, definitely not doing self blame and not blaming others because we want to have that power. So a couple of ways we can do it journaling, as you know, I love to journal and you can go to Amazon.com, dot au and look up the Extraordinary 90 Day Journal or the 90 Day Extraordinary Journal. Oh my God, I can’t even remember what it’s called now. Type in my name, Samantha Leith and you’ll find the journal and buy one. In the bottom of the second page of the Daily Journal, there’s a little bit about introspection and questions you can ask yourself.

00:12:18 – And I find that’s a really good place to look at any of these deeper questions about how I am taking responsibility or need to take responsibility or want to just like shove away that responsibility. Okay? A good way to also look at how you’re taking ownership of responsibility for things is looking at feedback you’re getting from other people or feedback from the world on things. Okay? Another way you can help get a handle on it is Affirmations.

00:12:49 – Now, I’m a believer in affirmations. Also power statements. I do a little bit of EFT, but you could just repeat to yourself, I’m in control of my choices. I take ownership of my decisions; I take ownership of my life. Okay?

00:13:05 – All of those little things we can do to help us look at that difference between blame and responsibility. So touched on a little bit of the difference between the two, obviously, and why it’s important for us to take responsibility so we have that ownership of our lives. It’s our life. I don’t want someone else to own it. I can actually just stop the podcast here.

00:13:27 – We don’t want other people to own who we are or what we’re doing. Kind of the whole point about personal development is getting to know ourselves well enough and to understand ourselves well enough to actually make the choices that we want and do the things that we want to. Okay? It’s one of the beautiful things about having this plastic mind where we get to, as Carol Dwyke says, change ourselves from being in a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Our brains are incredible.

00:13:58 – We get to do that. We really get to do that. And another way we can help ourselves take more responsibility and you might not like it by doing things that make us face our fears and at the same time or at a different time, embrace our desires.

00:14:22 – Taking responsibility of things can sometimes be a scary thing because it means we might have to change. And that change could be scary or that change could mean that we’re moving into something that fills our heart and sets our souls on fire so much more. Okay, so I encourage you to go onto Snapdrag.com Freebies and look at the exercises I have there in Courage. Okay? Because I think courage is a real key to helping us be able to accept more self-responsibility or personal responsibility accepting response in general.

00:14:57 – Okay, so how are some of the ways we can do more of this without being self? I can never say that word. Flagellating. I think it’s that why would I think it’s so funny? I don’t script my podcast, right?

00:15:13 – And I’d make a few notes. Then if there’s a quote or a statistic or something I want to actually make sure I get right, I will write that down, type it up rather. So I’m just like words come out of my mouth. Why on earth would my brain come up with a word that I always have difficulty pronouncing? Hilarious, Matt.

00:15:34 – I’m going to accept responsibility for that. Okay, so some of the ways we can help ourselves get over this, as I said, journaling. So it’s about reflecting and recognizing what’s going on, what’s influencing what we’re doing, where we think we’re sitting with whether we’re taking a responsibility or we’re laying blame. Okay, maybe write down a situation that actually happened and ask yourself this question is it true? There’s some amazing work called the Work Byron Katie where we do these exercises about is it true?

00:16:17 – So in a situation where you are laying blame for something and not wanting to take responsibility for it, write it out and ask yourself, is it true? Is it true that the RBA is responsible. Just ask yourself the question, and then when you write something down, ask yourself again, is it true? Yes or no? Is it true?

00:16:37 – Keep going, keep going, keep going. You know, I like goal setting, so I’m going to tell you that goal setting is one of the best ways to help you accept responsibility for your life. That is like the ultimate in taking control of what you’re doing. Okay, go back through the podcast. Find some of my goal setting episodes again, smathleth.com freebies.

00:17:07 – There’s a heap on goal setting there. Join the club. Lots of goal setting in there. But setting those goals and doing what you need to do, including setting up habits, being accountable, all that kind of stuff helps you get into, ironically, the habit of taking responsibility for your life. Okay, did you turn up to the airport without your passport?

00:17:32 – Is it the fault of your last busy day at work or is it because you weren’t organized? Do you need to set up some organizational skills? Are you as fit as you want to be? Is it the fault of the weather or could you have got on your indoor treadmill? So many things where we think it’s insignificant by not taking ownership of it ourselves, we think it doesn’t impact us.

00:18:01 – It really, truly does. It really does. Also want to really recommend, I’ve got a little note here saying people actually it says peeps. Being around people that get you and that take responsibility for their lives and their businesses and their health and their love and their mind and all of those things. Oh, my golly, golly, gosh really helps you get into practice with this.

00:18:28 – Really, truly. You know, have a look@smarthoot.com the club, if that interests you, you might have a group of friends that you could just talk about the stuff with. Maybe set a WhatsApp group with a couple of girlfriends or boyfriends and go, can we talk about the stuff? But find a group of people that you can talk about how you’re taking ownership of your life, what the hiccups are, and how you’re actually improving. That will really, really help.

00:18:55 – And I did write this quote down because I like quotes sometimes. Not every podcast, though. Maybe I should do a quote, a podcast. Note to self, to thine own self be true. Now that bloke.

00:19:10 – Bill Shakespeare. William Shakespeare said that? And we can’t be true to ourselves if we’re not taking responsibility because remember that bit about us that gives away our ownership of our lives and those moments again, I’m not talking about true situations where you have been a victim of something. I’m talking about that stuff where we just easily go, not my fault, not my monkeys. That’s what you want to take back, okay?

00:19:43 – Because being able to get up in the morning and go, this is what I’m doing today, and then going to bed that night going, I lived up to that I owned everything I did today. I’ve got the power over all of my decisions today. Some of them were great. Some of them, we could probably look at those later. And some of them, I’m still not sure whether it was the right decision.

00:20:11 – But I made the decision and I took ownership of my life. I’ve got the power. As Snap said, I’ve got the power. Such a good song.

00:20:22 – I do get carried away when I talk about music, don’t I? I just want you to remember that you’ve got the power to change this at any point. Okay? If you are listening to this podcast and thinking, oopsie, I really have played the blame game for 40 of my 49 years, it’s not too late. You get to rewrite your story and take ownership and responsibility of your life right now, and it hasn’t taken you 45 years to make that decision.

00:20:54 – You get to make that decision in a split second. Yes. No. Do it. Okay.

00:21:01 – Make the decision to own your life. The good, the bad and the what the thank you. Please, this week, just do one thing that helps you look at where you are and where you’re not taking responsibility, and work on one of those exercises I mentioned, journaling Affirmation, talking to somebody. Just one. Don’t have to do one every single day.

00:21:33 – Just this week, do one of them, and then you go, oh, that was fun. Maybe I’ll do two tomorrow. Maybe I’ll do all of them. And before you know it, a habit has been created and you are living your extraordinary life. So thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Smith Leaf podcast.

00:21:52 – I really, really do appreciate you listening to it, because I’ve taken the time to do it, and you giving your time to listen to it is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Thank you very much. Now, if you’ve gained something from this or you think someone would like this episode, take a screenshot of the episode cover and send it to someone. Tag me on the socials at Samantha Leith. And if you really feel like being generous, I’d love it if you jumped onto wherever you’re listening to this podcast and leave a review, because that is how it helps me connect with other listeners.

00:22:29 – And I’m here to entertain, educate and empower every single day of my life, helping people to live their most extraordinary life. And this podcast is just one of the ways I get to do it. So thank you once again for being a part of it. Now, until next week, have an extraordinary week, my friends, and take responsibility and go and do something fun. Bye.

00:22:56 – Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Samantha Leith Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the world of personal development and what’s possible for you, then I’d love to invite you to join the club it’s my monthly membership, designed to guide and support you with the tools and the coaching you need to be extraordinary. Head on over to Samanthaleith.com forward slash the club for more information. I’d love to see you on the inside close.