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JIMINY SELF-HELP HANDBOOK 6

In order to know if we are taking responsibility for our life, it is important to analyse the following
principles:

1. Knowing who we want to be – any individual needs a life plan to success and be happy, and for
that we need to know the person that we want to be and what is important for us. A clear purpose
of life and values will guide our choices and help us to priories and focus on what really matters
2. Knowing what we want – if we are aware about what we really want from life, setting effective
goals and purposes, then taking responsibility for our choices and actions is much more easier
3. Not blaming others – is an easy way out, but also a trap we all tend to fall into. In fact, when we
are blaming others we are assuming that we are not capable to fix the situation, and therefore we
lose the control of it. But if we decide to take responsibility our focus change and we will do
whatever possible to understand what went wrong and solve the problem
4. Not blaming ourselves – blaming is not an option; just because we should not blame other it does
not mean that we must blame ourselves. Responsibility means acceptance, is empowering. Blame,
on the other hand, means rejection and is disempowering. The root of self-blame is a barrier to
recognising relative responsibility
5. Being honest with ourselves – the first golden rule here is to give up all of the excuses (e.g. I am
too busy, I am too tired, I am too young/old). And then, stop moaning and start acting to put in
course the changes which we really want to make
6. Recognising that you benefit from the Status quo – i.e. from the current situation, when we know
that something in our life needs to change but we are not doing it. Once again, will be easy to start
with excuses. But once we take the responsibility and acknowledge the benefits of this situation,
our chances of success in move on greatly increase
7. Knowing we have always choices – often we say to ourselves that we had no choice. And with this
excuse, we self-absolve of all responsibility for the outcomes of our decisions. But, regardless of
the situation, there is always a choice. It can be an unpleasant one, or felt like is not a realistic
alternative, but we do have to make a choice

KNOWING WHO KNOWING WHAT NOT BLAMING
WE WANT TO BE WE WANT OTHERS

RECOGNISING
THAT WE BENEFIT BEING HONEST NOT BLAMING
FROM THE STATUS WITH OURSELVES OURSELVES
QUO

KNOWING WE
HAVE ALWAYS
CHOICES