In my line of work, I often see people come in and talk about the difficult people in their lives. Some people are able to see the role they play in their lives, but many want to put their focus on other people being the problem. It is easy to put the blame for your problems on someone else, but that is us giving our power away and not taking responsibility for where we are at in life. It is true that others can impact our lives, but ultimately we are responsible for our lives and what is happening in them.

Thoughts:

It is definitely easier to focus on the wrongs that another person has done or how another person has treated us and I think this largely stems from us not wanting to look at our own actions and what we have done. We tend to minimize our own actions and magnify the actions of others. It may stem from pride or self-esteem issues or even denial and refusal to look at how our actions impact our own lives. This is one of biggest hinderances to progress and creating change in your world.

One of the phrases that I use a lot in therapy is “you are the biggest problem in your world.” I say this because if you are the problem, you can also be the solution. If someone else is responsible for why our lives are the way they are; then we are giving our power to someone else and by default making ourselves powerless. I hear people talk about those they are in relationship with or the people that have hurt them and they talk from a place of being powerless or that change is not possible. Also, many people are living in the wounds of the past and see those wounds as the reasons they are struggling today. However, most people are struggling because of their own actions and decisions. I understand there are situations where people are victimized or natural disasters happen and lives are changed and impacted. However, the decisions after those situations are up to the person. We are living lives that are a culmination of our own choices. I have heard it said that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how you react and I think this is evident all around us. I have seen people overcome difficult situations, big and small, and I have seen people allow themselves to be defined by what happens to them.

In relationships, this often looks like blaming all the relationship problems on the other person. Rarely are relationship problems where one person is to blame, both people usually play a role. If one person really is to blame for the relationship problems then the other person probably should not be in a relationship with the difficult person. If a person stays in a relationship and complains about the person, but is not open to leaving, the other person is either not as bad as the person reports or the complainer is responsible for staying in the relationship. It all circles back to you, you are the problem and solution in your world.

Sometimes when I am in a couples’ counseling session, it becomes a circular discussion. A dialogue is started about a situation that happened in the relationship and while I try to get each partner to recognize the role they each played in the conflict, they are sometimes not interested in doing that. However, sometimes it just turns into the blame game where each partner blames their actions as just reacting to what the other person has done or because of what the other person has done in the past. It is like a dog chasing its tail, the discussion goes nowhere and no progress is made. What am I supposed to do as a therapist when I ask a client to talk about what they have done wrong and they instead talk about what the other person has done wrong. Then when I talk to the other partner and ask them to talk about what they could have done better, they talk about what the other person has done wrong. I think people are looking for confirmation that they have been treated poorly by their partner and as a result, it excuses their own behavior. And yet, they are miserable and the antidote to being miserable is owning the role we all play in our own lives. A person cannot have progress in life or relationships if he or she do not own the role they play in it. And unless somehow, a person has managed to achieve perfection(which would be impossible considering their life has problems in it), each person plays a way bigger role in their life and relationships than you realize. It is always interesting to me when I talk to certain people and those people are always having relationship problems or talk about how someone else is treating them poorly, they never talk about what they did wrong or could have done differently. 100% of the responsibility for the conflict is put on the other people. I wonder if that person will ever realize that they are the difficult person in the relationship, not the other people they complain about.

Wherever a person has problems in their life, they have a responsibility to make changes. Those that recognize this are impressive and overcome so many difficulties, they are inspiring. Part of making change is accepting the reality of who we are and our shortcomings or flaws. Once that happens, change can happen. Some elements of reality are hard to discover, we are so used to living with our own individual truth, that we don’t recognize that it might not actually be reality. We tend to focus on what we do well and then blame someone else when something isn’t going well in our lives. However, when we analyze ourselves and ask ourselves where we need to grow, we can usually find someone. I guess being open to flaws and accepting that we have some, might be the first step to change. We can also do the hard task and ask others, whether personal or professional, where we need to make changes. Asking someone who we are in relationship with how we can be better in relationship is not only brave, but a true sign of humility and willingness to growth.

In life in general, if a person complains that they need a job and can’t find one or there aren’t any jobs available, I am often interested in finding out details. There are some rare difficult situations, but most often this person is not open to certain jobs because of one reason or another. This leads to the lack of a job being a choice not a can’t. This is the same when they complain about any situation they are “stuck” in life and when given suggestions, they give excuses for every solution. Ultimately, the person either is unwilling to make the changes necessary to have a solution or they just like to complain about situations in life. It is amazing what we make possible when we put difficult options on the table.

The most difficult element about blaming other people or factors for where you are at in life is that it leaves you stuck. If you are not the reason for the problems in your world than you don’t have the blame or the responsibility to fix the situation. It is allows people to deny that their own actions have led them to being in the situations they are in. And while it is nice to not to be the one to blame for a problem, ultimately it is only by owning our decisions and what happens after can we truly have change in our world.

Takeaway:

Your life has a “you” problem in it. If you do not like where your life is at, you have the responsibility to make the change. No one is responsible for how your life looks, you are. You can make excuses or you can accept that you are the summary of your life choices and make changes. You are not a victim even if you have been victimized in the past. You have an opportunity to make your life great, go do it. However, don’t be a jerk to others to do it. Be kind, loving, and respectful. You probably have some good people around you who have been waiting for you to own your own actions and mistakes.