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Hi Team,

Two months ago in email #104 "Wright & Wrong", I wrote about the long-term effect of making poor short-term decisions. Since writing that email, I have read two articles about the power of taking responsibility for your your choices and how this affects your conduct at work and at home. These articles have left me thinking a lot about the premise that ultimately in life "everything is your fault".

One inescapable truth in life is that you are the only person living your life and everything that happens to you and because of you is your responsibility. So a logical extension of this belief is that "a central characteristic of all well-adjusted, self-aware people is that they are conscious that everything good and bad in their life is their own fault".
Not recognizing or acknowledging that something bad is your fault means you are destined to repeat the mistake again and again.

"When you are late for a meeting due to heavy traffic, do you blame the traffic or take responsibility for not allowing enough time to drive to the meeting?"

How you answer the above question tells you a lot about your default mindset. If you naturally have an active mindset, you will tend to own your thoughts and actions, but if you have a passive mindset you generally think things happen to you and they are not your responsibility.

A passive mindset is characterized by regularly thinking "I can't", which simply means you are not willing to put in the effort to learn something new. The term "passive mindset" is very accurate, because it is a lazy personality trait where you don't have to look inside yourself and change anything. In contrast, an active mindset is characterized by being well aware of your own weaknesses and failures. It's the difference between "I can't" and "I choose not to".

"I must do something" always solves more problems than "something must be done". This is the difference between an active and a passive mindset.  Maria Konikova

People with a passive disposition may often think "why does this ..... keep happening to me?" which to me means they are living in a state of denial. In essence they have convinced themselves that what is happening to them is not their responsibility and they are prepared to live with their head in the sand. But the reality is that you are absolutely responsible for your thoughts and your actions.

For me, the following message has come through load and clear, in order to shift from a passive to an active mindset;
"Stop lying to yourself.
Own your choices.
Own the process.
Take control of your life.'

Thanks for reading,
Stay safe and be active,
David