Principle One

Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot
change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind,
but you can change yourself.

Jim Rohn
America's foremost business philosopher

One of the most pervasive myths in the American culture today is that we areentitled to a great life -- that somehow, somewhere, someone (certainly not us)is responsible for filling our lives with continual happiness, exciting careeroptions, nurturing family time, and blissful personal relationships simply becausewe exist.

But the real truth -- and the one lesson this whole book is based on -- isthat there is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live.

That person is you.

If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility foreverything that you experience in your life. This includes the level of yourachievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, thestate of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, yourfeelings -- everything!

This is not easy.

In fact, most of us have been conditioned to blame something outside ofourselves for the parts of our life we don't like. We blame our parents, ourbosses, our friends, the media, our coworkers, our clients, our spouse, theweather, the economy, our astrological chart, our lack of money -- anyone oranything we can pin the blame on. We never want to look at where the realproblem is -- ourselves.

There is a wonderful story told about a man who is out walking one night and comes upon another man down on his knees looking for something undera streetlamp. The passerby inquires as to what the other man is lookingfor. He answers that he is looking for his lost key. The passerby offers to helpand gets down on his knees and helps him search for the key. After an hour offruitless searching, he says, "We've looked everywhere for it and we haven'tfound it. Are you sure that you lost it here?"

The other man replies, "No, I lost it in my house, but there is more lightout here under the streetlamp."

It is time to stop looking outside yourself for the answers to why youhaven't created the life and results you want, for it is you who creates thequality of the life you lead and the results you produce.

You -- no one else!

To achieve major success in life -- to achieve those things that are mostimportant to you -- you must assume 100% responsibility for your life. Nothingless will do.

One Hundred Percent Responsibility For Everything

As I mentioned in the introduction, back in 1969 -- only 1 year out of graduateschool -- I had the good fortune to work for W. Clement Stone. He was aself-made multimillionaire worth $600 million at the time -- and that waslong before all the dot-com millionaires came along in the '90s. Stone wasalso America's premier success guru. He was the publisher of Success Magazine,author of The Success System That Never Fails, and coauthor withNapoleon Hill of Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.

When I was completing my first week's orientation, Mr. Stone asked me ifI took 100% responsibility for my life.

"I think so," I responded.

"This is a yes or no question, young man. You either do or you don't."

"Well, I guess I'm not sure."

"Have you ever blamed anyone for any circumstance in your life? Haveyou ever complained about anything?"

"Uh ... yeah ... I guess I have."

"Don't guess. Think."

"Yes, I have."

"Okay, then. That means you don't take one hundred percent responsibilityfor your life. Taking one hundred percent responsibility means you acknowledgethat you create everything that happens to you. It means you understandthat you are the cause of all of your experience. If you want to be really successful, and I know you do, then you will have to give up blaming and complainingand take total responsibility for your life -- that means all your results,both your successes and your failures. That is the prerequisite for creating alife of success. It is only by acknowledging that you have created everythingup until now that you can take charge of creating the future you want.

"You see, Jack, if you realize that you have created your current conditions,then you can uncreate them and re-create them at will. Do you understandthat?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"Are you willing to take one hundred percent responsibility for your life?"

"Yes, sir, I am!"

And I did.

You Have to Give Up All Your Excuses

Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from
people who have a habit of making excuses.

George Washington Carver
Chemist who discovered over 325 uses for the peanut

If you want to create the life of your dreams, then you are going to have to take100% responsibility for your life as well. That means giving up all your excuses,all your victim stories, all the reasons why you can't and why youhaven't up until now, and all your blaming of outside circumstances. Youhave to give them all up forever.

You have to take the position that you have always had the power to makeit different, to get it right, to produce the desired result. For whateverreason -- ignorance, lack of awareness, fear, needing to be right, the need tofeel safe -- you chose not to exercise that power. Who knows why? It doesn'tmatter. The past is the past. All that matters now is that from this point forwardyou choose -- that's right, it's a choice -- you choose to act as if (that's allthat's required -- to act as if ) you are 100% responsible for everything thatdoes or doesn't happen to you ...

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Excerpted from The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack L. Canfield, Janet Switzer
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.