The Success Principles: Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life

In any area you’re looking to improve on, there are countless examples of people who achieved what you desire, starting in an even worse position than you.

The key to achieving anything that you desire is taking the position that you have always had the power to make it different, to get it right, to produce the desired result. For whatever reason, ignorance, lack of awareness, fear, needing to be right, need to feel safe- you chose not to exercise that power.

Canfield lays out a nice little formula originally created by Dr. Robert Resnick, a psychotherapist.

Event (E) + Response (R) = Outcome (O)

The basic idea of this formula is that every outcome you experience in life is the result of how you have responded to an earlier event or events in your life.

Here is an example of how this formula comes into play on a daily basis:

Event: Every Saturday and Sunday you have off from work

Response: You lay on the couch play video games, eat pizza, and drink beer.

Outcome: You are out of shape and have very little social life

OR

Event: Every Saturday and Sunday you have off from work

Response: You join a bike club and go on long distance group rides across your state

Outcome: You are more physically fit and have are continually socializing with new people

The above was just an example of how you can control your response to any event… leading to the final outcome. The point is that events are outside of your control. You cannot control the economy, the weather, your boss’s or girlfriend’s bad attitude… but you can control the way you respond to them.

Canfield states:

You only have control over three things in your life- the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take. How you use these three things determines everything you experience.

If You Keep on Doing What You’ve Always Done, You’ll Keep on Getting What You’ve Always Got

Over 10 years ago when I first entered college I was completely frustrated with my inability to lose my virginity. It seemed that everyone around me was scoring with different girls every night. I was going to the same parties that they were going to (the events) but, instead of talking to girls… I spent the nights getting extremely drunk trying to compensate for my shyness (the response), so I was waking up hungover and alone, feeling like a failure (the outcome).

I repeated this over and over again… until I neared the end of my first semester feeling like a complete and utter failure with women.

Towards the end of the semester I had the realization that only a crazy person would keep doing something that is obviously not working. Was I crazy?

At this point I made my decision to change my response. I was naturally more introverted than my peers. This was something that I would have to work on. My previous response was to get completely drunk… allowing me lose some of my inhibitions. This usually resulted in me making a fool of myself, passing out, or getting violently sick. None of these actions resulted in me getting any closer to my desire to meet a girl I could have intimate relations with.

I decided that my new response would be to spend the nights out imitating the guys who were achieving the goal I wanted. I noticed that these guys rarely got completely hammered. They usually never exceeded more than a buzz. I was not as naturally extroverted as them, but I payed attention to how they interacted with women, and began to model my communication after theirs. I spent less time drinking and more time socializing. Within 2 weeks of adopting my new behavior I met the girl I would go on to lose my virginity to.

If you want different outcome; you need to change your response to the events in front of you.

You Have to Give Up Blaming

We all know that person who will always blame someone or something else for their lack of success. But blame is a complete waste of time. No matter how much fault you find in another person, a system, your country… it will not change you.

Maybe you blame your ex girlfriend, who cheated on you, for your inability to commit to a new relationship. Or maybe you blame your mother for getting you fat by feeding you the wrong types of food while you were growing up. Or you blame your boss for not recognizing your contribution and giving you a raise.

But if you are going to be a winner, it is time you face the truth- it is you who took the actions, thought the thoughts, created the feeling, and the choices that got you where you are. It was you! -Canfield

Everything anyone else did to you in your life up until this point is the events (E). It was your response (R) that lead to your current outcome. (O) Stop blaming the events… and start taking responsibility for your response to them.