In an interesting book by Denis Waitley entitled, Empires of the Mind, Denis provides steps to gain personal responsibility. Like Stephen Covey who talks about response ability, or the ability to be proactive, Dennis states:
"1. Carry this affirmative motto with you: My rewards in life will reflect my service and contribution.
2. Invest in developing your own knowledge and skills. The only real security in life is inside us.
3. Take 15 minutes each day for yourself alone. Use them to ponder how you can best spend your time for achieving what's most important to you.
4. Set your own standards rather than comparing yourself to others. Successful people know they must compete with themselves, not with others. They run their own races.
5. Learn to depend on yourself. Don't rely on other people, material rewards, or a prestigious job title to give you your self-worth. No one can take away your self-respect when it comes from within.
6. "No excuses, Sir" is a West Point motto. When you make a mistake or fail at an assignment, avoid making exceuses or blaming others. If a commitment can't be met, always call immediately with a reason instead of making excuses after the fact.
7. Use anothe motto for your self-analysis. 'Life is a do-it-yourself project'. When your subordiantes or teammates bring you a problem, first ask them what they think should be done to resolve it. Be certain to assign responsibility for the solution and follow through to the subordinate or team member. Resist taking the easy way out and doing it for them.
8. Let your teammates, subordinates, and children make mistakes without fear or punishment or rejection. Show them that mistakes are learning devices that become stepping stones to success.
9. Break your daily and weekly routine. Get out of your comfortable rut. Unplug your TV for a month. Take a different route or different mode of transportation to work. Have lunch with people in totally different industries and read publications in totally different fields than your current one.
10. Take the blame for your position in life honestly and openly and share the credit for your successes with those who deserve it."
These are all good examples of acting more responsibly. I would make two more suggestions. Give thanks to your loving maker who made you responsible for your actions and continues to give you assistance and support when you fall short. In all thy doings and accomplishments remember you are still beggars to that person who will advocate your defense.
Denis also provides 10 Action Exercises for inner vision and creativity
1. Use your six senses (take in as many sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes as you can)
2. Form mental images (form a mental image of the person's talk/presentation allowing words to form images)
3. Become a better speaker using rich visual imagery
4, Improve you recall ability (observe objects in room, close your eyes and try to remember object's size, textures, colors, shapes)
5. Get in touch (hold an object, close your eyes and trace shape and picture it in your mind)
6. Listen and learn while listening to a book on tape and imagine your own sounds, sights and settings
7. Watch TV with your eyes closed to imagine the scene, images, etc. (most TV and action movies have too many images thus frustrating our creative juices
8. Write your thoughts down on a regular basis during your free time
9. Learn to draw using visual details, shapes and textures
10. Continue to read to observe imagery and allow your creative juices to flow
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