How to Take Responsibility for Your Personal and Professional Life

The word responsibility often has a negative connotation, because when we were growing up the word was associated with doing something wrong. When our parents, teachers or guardians would say "Who's responsible for this?', it generally had to do with something that wasn't accomplished correctly or something that had just been broken. Either way, it left us with a bad feeling. But taking responsibility for what we do, has much more to do with how successful we will be and what we ultimately become. Here is how to work to turn the negativity, positive.

1. Step 1

   Accept the fact that you are in control of what you do. If you surround yourself with people who influence you to make poor choices, you surrounded yourself with those people. You can change that.

2. Step 2

   Set up daily, weekly, monthly goals and create a plan to achieve them. Ask for the help of others to achieve your goals from people who are genuinely are interested in your well being and success. The success doesn't have to be financial success you are looking to achieve. It could be personal success -- overcoming smoking or dieting or building a shed for instance.

3. Step 3

   Plan for the unexpected, because setbacks will occur to slow down your plan. If you expect something to take a week, add a few extra days; if it gets done within the original time frame that is even better. Plan for delays, they surely will happen and be prepared to deal with them. Often in today's business world we are tempted to rush to finish and then are disappointed in the results.

4. Step 4

   Overcome putting off until tomorrow what you can do to today. Procrastination isn't going to help you achieve your goals. Take charge of what you have control over. You have control over, what you do, not what others do.

5. Step 5

   Believe you have the right to accomplish what you have set out to do, by setting goals that are "SMART" goals. Those goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.

6. Step 6

   Don't accept responsibility for someone else's failures, but be willing to accept responsibility for your own actions. Remember this - there is no failure in trying to do something, the only failure is in not trying.

7. Step 7

   Accept that you will need to do some things that are not as enjoyable as others, to accomplish your ultimate goal.

8. Step 8

   Do even the things you are unhappy about with the same professionalism and dedication that you do the thing you enjoy. Be able to say, you do your best in everything you do.