What Did I Do?

“If you are faced with a problem and you do not ask yourself what your role was in arriving to the problem, you are fundamentally doing yourself a disservice…”

 

History repeats itself for a reason.

Why?   It’s because people don’t learn from their mistakes.

Before we go further – here is some background on “people”.  They react.  It’s what they do.  It’s what they have learned to do their entire life in any and almost every situation.  It’s their normal because those reacting learned to behave from other people whom also react.  Thanks mom and dad…  

Generally speaking, when we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we automatically blame someone or something else.  What we don’t do is ask ourselves the above question at the right time — the right time defined as, “in that difficult situation”.

For example…

You see a late charge on your credit card bill and you call customer service to have the fee waived.  The credit card company refuses to waive the fee.  You get angry and blame customer service.

If, you asked yourself the above question before “reacting”, you would have realized that “If I paid the bill on time, there would not be a late charge.  If there wasn’t a late charge, I wouldn’t have had to call customer service.  If I didn’t call customer service, I wouldn’t have had a bad experience. This is all my fault…”

Very simple, right?

Remember, introspection is key for personal development.  Everyone has flaws and you have to give yourself permission to accept them and, if important, correct them.

So, the next time you find yourself in a difficult situation and before you “react”, seek first to understand the situation itself and your role in arriving to it.  You may be surprised to find that you did nothing wrong.  However, if you do discover your fault, you may lead with “my bad” and that could set the tone for resolving the situation on a positive note.

To your continued success…

Author: vikaskhanna

http://www.vikaskhanna.me View all posts by vikaskhanna