How to Achieve More Self Responsibility

A period of doubt has entered my mind this week with regard to the value of these posts. For I find that good ideas for change are usually not sufficiently strong enough to catalyze the will and one falls back or simply continues along in the line of least resistance.

Procrastination and social anxiety both respond best to self responsibility which I want to clarify here. In notes on this topic collected over the past 20 odd years, several points are worth passing on.

Self responsibility means:

l. Choosing to think for yourself.
2. It is recognizing that only our own understanding can guide us.
3. When you choose to avoid intellectual independence or avoid doing what the mind says to do, this is a policy of self abdication.
4. To think and look at the world through your own eyes is basic to self responsibility.
5. Self responsibility applies when behavior is a function of decisions not conditions. This is close to saying that you shouldn’t blame others, or conditions for your plight; take responsibility for creating it your self.
6. Self responsibility means you are able to subordinate action to values.
7. Finally, the self responsible person is able to perform actions not to please others but for personal satisfaction.

For the reluctant or easily timidified, these blandishments in favor of self responsibility may seem scary, impractical or just blame unrealizable. Perhaps they are for some. However, the gargantuan lust for self improvement evidenced by the large library of self help manuals would seem to argue at least for continued attention to the possibilities of change and redemption.

Mark's Blog