Taking Ownership

The older I get, and the older my kids are, the more important the lesson of taking ownership for things, especially in life seems to be. Late to a meeting? Fail a test? Life isn't mean, if just means you weren't prepared. I do notice in my kids friends, a tendency for things never to be your fault. Sometimes it is. You don't study? Well, you fail the test. It's a lesson I want to impart to my kids and yet find important in my own life too. It sounds easy to say that you want to make a change or do something new and different. But if you don't own it, it won't happen. I think Ownership, with a capital "O" means:

Ownership, in my opinion, means....

– If you want to change, you have to make it happen:  This seems like and easy thing to say but it's absolutely the hardest thing to do. I think there's a song that goes "Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying" Well that's not enough, you have to do.

– Other people are not the problem: You weren't late to school because of traffic, it's because you stayed up to late playing games or reading and slept through your alarm. Fail that test or get a bad review at work? Buckle down and study (or work harder). Making excuses is easy and it's hard to pullback and look at what really caused the problem.  

– What you do matters: This can actually be motivating. At my new job I planned, scheduled and managed a major audit of our company's IT systems and we got a great report. I felt awesome and my hard work paid off. Being able to see something like that is only possible when you take ownership.

– Know the goal: You can't strive to achieve something if you don't know what you want. Think hard and figure out what's REALLY important. It's usually not what you think but being able to recognize what your goal is and to move towards it is a major part of ownership.

– You've got to stand for something: Don't be afraid of what you believe. You don't have to shout it from the roof top or be aggressive and arrogant about it but you have to know what you believe. If you do something wrong, admit it and learn from it, do something right? Feels good, doesn't it?

– Remember you:  As a working mom to three kids in 6th, 7th and 9th grade, I find this one hard. I have to remind myself to take a break. Most recently this has taken the form of making sure I get to yoga class twice a week and do a kindle yoga video I like 2 other days. But you have to own taking care of you.

Do you take ownership of your life? How?