Or a set of them.
Personal accountability.
Some days I ask myself if personal accountability is dead.
I have people who refuse to honour their agreements. People who lie to me to avoid honouring their agreements. And even people who call me a friend, but are not actually that at all.
But then I remember.
There’s only one person I can actually control in this equation, and that is me.
One of my favourite parts from “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfield is found very early on in the book. He uses a formula that I feel that I have shared with some of you, but possibly not all. So I will share it here again (who would have thought ha!)
E+R=O
So in this equation, there are three parts. You control but one of them.
There is the Event – this is the thing that happens. You likely had a hand in it, but you may or may not be directly responsible for this thing.
The O is the outcome. You may not think you are directly in control of the outcome, but you are.
Because the R is RESPONSE – your response to any event determines the absolute outcome.
So – in the end, there’s only one part in the equation that you do not directly control, and that is the event (if you really check in, and depending on the event, you probably had a hand in that too – but not always).
Let’s use a simple example.
You are driving down the street, and someone rear ends you. This is relatively easy – you probably did nothing to deserve this particular event, but let’s just assume you weren’t doing something that you shouldn’t have been doing while driving that wasn’t driving.
Next comes the response. Your response to said event.
There are a number of ways you can respond to this incident.
The simple and obvious thing to do is to document everything, get the other party’s information, and then sort it out later or let the insurance companies sort it out.
Or, if there is little to no damage, you could tell that person not to worry about it – it was minor, nobody got hurt, and go on about your day.
Or you could go ballistic on this person, and then let that small thing ruin your day and theirs.
Every day we have this opportunity to react.
How are you doing?
I know I have some room for improvement… which is probably why I felt inspired (haha) to write this today.
You all with me?