Who wants more responsibility?

Who wants more responsibility? Are you raising your hand? My guess is that most people won't. 

Why is that? 

Well because we've come to associate responsibility with a lot of work with no reward. When we think of responsibility we also think of the person who is going to get blamed when things go wrong, and it's interesting that we're programmed to think that things will go wrong. 

What we don't associate responsibility with is opportunity, and that's a pity, because that's what responsibility really is: an opportunity to make something happen, to change things, to create something. When you ask small children "who wants to draw?" All hands go up because they are excited by the opportunity to create something, but as the years roll by and their work gets criticised, in time when you ask this question of older children, "Who wants to draw" very few hands go up. This describes our conditioning to responsibility. Like the older kids who think of the criticism and not the opportunity to create something, we don't think of responsibility as the opportunity to create, we see only the criticism and blame that we get. 

Who wants responsibility for this project? 

Not me. 

Because I'll get no support when this train starts going off the rails, and people will give me grief for any little mistake I make along the way. So no; thank you very much, I don't want the responsibility. It's thankless unrewarding work. 

But think again. 

Responsibility is the fundamental choice every human being has about life. Fundamentally you either choose to believe you are a victim in life, someone who change happens to, someone who hopes things work out, someone who waits for someone else to lead. Or you choose to believe that you are responsible for how your life turns out. That you are the one who decides what dish you are going to create with whatever ingredients life serves you. 

Yes with opportunity comes risk. But that's a fundamental truth about life. 

Your business venture, career, marriage all come with no guarantee. Any one may fail spectacularly, but if you don't take responsibility there is little chance of things working out the way you want. This week think about where you've not been taking responsibility, your job, your marriage, your friendship, your big idea to start a business or write a book. Don't let failure or fear of getting blamed and shamed stop you from taking responsibility. Because if you do, then you have no chance of creating something better for you, your family, your company or your country.