How many times have you heard someone who said something that is mean, vindictive and hurtful and justify it by saying the recipient had ‘made’ the doer mad?

This is just an example of using blame to justify our own bad behavior. Being mean and hurtful is bad and instead of accepting what we did, we prefer to hide under the protective shield of blaming the other person for making us behave in this manner.

Since the time we started talking and understanding things, we developed this habit of blaming people and things around us for our misery. Take for example a blamer who skipped work and always bitched about her company, gets fired one day. Instead of realizing why she was fired, she maintains the fact that she was fired coz the boss didn’t like her. She will not agree that all the laziness and constant bitching and cribbing got her fired. Often such people try to correlate their inefficiencies by saying “well almost everyone else was not working and was constantly bitching about the company. I didn’t do it more than anybody else. I was fired only coz boss hates me”. Instead of realizing her own shortcomings, she preferred to resort to blaming the boss for getting fired.

But this blaming mentality has a very fine line between reality and actions. You cannot recognize that you have it because it is self-reinforcing. You just don’t see yourself doing it because to you it seems logical and normal. Blaming brings short term benefits and gives you pleasure in feeling that you are good and that the world is conspiring against you to make you feel miserable which you cannot control.

Let’s do a simple exercise, list down 10 things that you feel are an obstacle in your happiness and success. Don’t hurry, give yourself 10 minutes to think this through. Now, read what you have written. I can pretty much sum up in general what most of the people would have written. “Lousy job”, “don’t have a loving spouse”, “don’t have enough money to start your dream business”, “don’t have enough time”, “don’t have a good boss”.

Now, let’s think in a positive way. Do you truly feel that the things you mentioned above are really hindrances? Life is always about overcoming obstacles and finding success, then why blame some other factors for your unhappiness. These things always hold everyone of us at succeeding at some point or the other, but is it fair to just sit and keep blaming? The only thing that holds us back is our own thinking. If we decide what we want and work for it then no obstacle can come in our path of success.

When I first heard that I was responsible for everything in my life, I initially accepted that and began to relate myself for every failure and setback. The hardest part was to take credit for the good results that I had created and to accept the fact that I could actually do what I wanted at any level imaginable.

Over the years, I have realized that being responsible for everything in your life is not about blaming or boasting about success but simply acknowledging the connection of what you do and what you don’t do and the results you generate.

At first it is difficult to remove the shield of blaming others and take full responsibility. Imagine how difficult it would be to learn how to ride a bike when you keep blaming the pavement and the obstacles in the path for your imbalance. Instead, you learn how to balance and avoid those obstacles to be able to ride a bike.

Pause and think for a moment now. If things are constantly wrong in your life, if you keep ending up in miserable situations, then chances are that world is not mean against you but there is something really wrong within you. If you cannot find any fault then ask people around you, your friends and family to give you another perspective.

Unfortunately, in such cases you will end up hearing things which you probably don’t want to hear. But don’t react when you hear something against the theory that you have coined up in your minds since a long time. Listen to what people have to say and ask yourself, “if so many people are saying then surely there must be some reason behind it”. Let yourself to change and accept things around you. Obstacles are only to make you feel happy when you actually reach the peak, acknowledge them and fight hard to remove them, don’t let them hamper your speed to success and make you blame others.