3 Good Reasons to Own Your Sh*t

Stop playing the blame game.

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Have you ever noticed people’s tendencies to blame others when they’re unhappy? I sure have.

Some people spend their entire lives dreaming up creative ways to avoid personal responsibility for their problems; problems are always someone or something else’s fault. Oh sure, once in a while it feels good to give yourself a get-out-of-jail-free-pass when life hurls challenges your way.

But the truth is, while we might feel temporarily vindicated by blaming others when things go wrong, there are three good reasons to start looking in the mirror when we feel misunderstood, stuck, or short-changed.

1. Blaming others offers no clues for solutions

Rita and Ben have a 3-year-old, Stacy. Lately, Rita had been feeling that, despite the fact they both have full-time jobs, she does most of the childcare. She decided to approach Ben with her concern, asking him to feed Stacy dinners because he got home before Rita. Ben agreed.

The next night when Rita returned home, she was pleased to find Ben and Stacy seated at the dining room table and Stacy was eating her dinner. When Rita joined them, she noticed that Ben had served Stacy pizza, but no side dishes, such as vegetables or fruit. Since Rita was concerned about nutrition, she said to Ben, “Ben, this isn’t a very good dinner. I can’t believe you served her this.”

With that, Ben abruptly left the table. As he left, Rita began to ruminate,

I have to do everything myself, it’s just easier that way. Ben isn’t invested in being a dad. He is lazy and always takes the easy way out. And the worst part is when I give him valuable feedback, he leaves because he can’t stand hearing the truth. I’m tired of being a single parent.

OK, granted, pizza might not be the best food choice in the world for a growing child, but Rita’s self-talk about Ben, the way she characterizes his actions, intentions, and motivations is highly critical, possibly invalid, and damaging to their relationship. But most importantly, with her microscope so narrowly focused on Ben and his behavior, Rita failed to examine her own behavior that night.

That’s unfortunate because therein lies a solution.

If Rita had been able to step back and look at the sequence of interactions at the dining room table, she might have realized that Ben had taken her request seriously to be more take-charge with Stacy’s dinners. Instead of recognizing and reinforcing Ben’s efforts, she criticized him.

Even if Rita felt strongly about the importance of nutrition, Rita had choices; she could have decided that Ben’s increased involvement with Stacy was more important than the nutritional value of her meal and told Ben how much she appreciated that he was honoring her request.

She could have chosen to say nothing to Ben about what he served Stacy and, later in the evening, made a list of food options that would be preferable to her. Either of these choices would have been less likely to trigger Ben. Rita could have created a different outcome that evening singlehandedly.

2. Blaming others makes you a victim

When we feel disappointed, let down, angry, offended, or hurt by others, believing that whatever happened is all their fault is not only short-sighted, it takes away our power. If we convince ourselves that we had nothing to do with the outcome of our interactions, our only option is to keep our fingers crossed that other people will agree with our assessment and do something to change. Meanwhile, short of stewing, ruminating, and twiddling our thumbs, there is not much we can do.

I don’t know about you, but when something happens that makes me feel bad, believing that the person who caused the discomfort is the sole cause of the problem leaves me feeling like a victim, and a helpless one, at that. It might feel good temporarily to assure myself that I did everything right and the problem would not have occurred had the other person been more thoughtful or clear-headed like me.

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But the truth is, in all likelihood, the other person is thinking the exact same thing: That I caused the problem. Can you say, “stalemate?”

Exacerbating this tendency to blame others is our tendency to share our troubles with our friends. Having heard only one side of the story—ours—our loyal friends tell us, “What was your husband thinking? I can’t believe how selfish he was.” or “Your friend was totally out of line complaining about your being late.”

In short, our friends jump on the blaming bandwagon. Although this unconditional (and biased) support feels comforting, it does little to help us investigate our own behavior or how we might handle things differently moving forward. And so we wait for others “to evolve,” robbing us of our personal agency.

3. Blaming others often demonstrates a lack of empathy

There is no question about it, people screw up sometimes. Period. That’s because we’re human. But when someone hurts or disappoints you, what’s the story you tell yourself about their indiscretions?

Does that little inner voice say things like: “I knew I could ever count on him” or “She never cares about my feelings, she’s only out for herself?” The meaning we ascribe to the events that take place in our lives is a powerful antecedent to what happens next.

If the stories we tell ourselves convince us that others are simply malicious, thoughtless, or calculating, we stay stuck in our positions that nothing short of a lobotomy will change things. Not only does this rob us of tools to achieve better, happier outcomes, but it also overlooks the fact that we may be missing out on vital information that would lessen the sting of other people’s transgressions.

For example, do you ever stop to think about what might be going on in their lives that may have contributed to their less-than-sensitive behavior? Are they overworked, stressed out, grieving, or depressed? Knowing a bit about what’s happening in their worlds may elicit justifiable empathy, soften our reactions, and open up new possibilities for resolution.

If nothing else, perhaps developing a sense of humor about our need to abdicate personal responsibility is in order. Once on a hike with a friend, she said, “I often blame others for my problems, but I got that from my mother.”