Moving the Needle: Get Clear, Get Free, and Get Going in Your Career, Business, and Life!

Chapter 7Get Free by Taking 100 Percent Responsibility

Most people do not really want freedom because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

—SIGMUND FREUD, from his book Civilization and Its Discontents¹

A man named Charlie is on his deathbed in the hospital and has only a few days to live.

Turning to his wife, he says, “Martha, I have been doing a lot of thinking about my life and you have always been there. When I dropped out of college, you were there. When I lost my first job, you were there. When I lost my second job, you were still there. When I lost all of our money and our house, you were there. When we moved into our efficiency apartment, you were there. And now that I am dying of cancer, I have concluded, after all these years…Martha, you're just bad luck!”

You could make the case that Charlie never took responsibility for anything that happened to him. So let me ask you this: How responsible are you for what happens in your life?

Is it 50/50?

How about 52/48?

Or 60/40?

Of course, the answer is that you are 100 percent responsible for everything that happens in your life. Until you accept this basic fact, you will never get entirely free.

I know there are things out of our control. But taking personal responsibility for the aspects you can control and taking responsibility for what happens in your life—good, bad, or indifferent—will ...