Are you willing to take responsibility for your part in the awful?

When things are awesome it’s easy to be accountable.

There is nothing more satisfying than taking responsibility for our actions when things are moving along awesomely. When things are going well, we want people to notice our piece of creating the awesomeness. We feel great. Everyone around us feels great. People are proud to share their little piece in creating that awesomeness.

When things go wrong, it’s not so easy.

Being accountable is more challenging when things are headed towards awful.

When things go wrong, YIKES! Fear Strikes. We shut down, we feel ourselves shrink, we may panic using the mental space we need to think clearly. The way forward is obscured.

There are several ways to approach the situation:

  1. Freeze and hope things will get better on there own.
  2. Pretend it’s not happening and hide it from people until we can figure out how to solve the mess on our own,
  3. Notice there is a problem and blame others for creating it. (Otherwise known as “create a diversion”)
  4. Engage other people before the situation becomes a crisis and share the responsibility for resolving it.

The results of these approaches are quite different. The first two approaches will likely result in the situation escalating to a crisis where there is no way out. The third approach results in a lot of wasted time and energy without focusing on the problem which then results in the situation escalating to a crisis. The last likely results in a crisis averted and the quick return to awesomeness. Phew! That’s just what we are looking for.

It takes courage

It takes a lot of courage to take responsibility for the awful and engage others in helping to resolve the situation. It requires, even more, courage if we have had a big part in creating the awful. To properly enrol others in helping us resolve an awful situation requires they are clear on what the problem is and understand the details of the current situation.

No matter what approach you have taken in the past, take time to harvest the lessons from the awful situation. The more lessons you harvest, the more awesome you will become.

Be courageous. Be awesome. Take responsibility for your part of the awful.

Remember you are amazing. You are capable. You are unique and you are worth celebrating.

Alison