Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
I’ve been listening to the book, “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willnik and Lief Babin. The idea is to own everything in your world and to Blame no one else.
We are to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them without blaming anyone else.
We need to acknowledge there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. We need to explain not just what to do but why.
Ego corrupts and disrupts everything, the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive and helpful criticism. It can even stifle someone’s sense of self-preservation. The most difficult ego to deal with will likely be our own.
We need a simple plan. If the plan is simple enough everyone understands it. If the plan is too complex we and our team (family, business, or group cannot make rapid adjustments because the baseline understanding of it is not there.
We need to know what the most important problem is to deal with. We must prioritize and execute. We must relax, look around, and make a call.
We must build trust with our members. Trust is not blindly given it must be built over time. Open conversations build trust, overcoming stress and challenges builds trust. Working through emergencies and being there for people builds trust.
Leadership comes from the top. If those we lead aren’t doing what we want rather than blame them for not seeing the big picture we must figure out a way to better communicate it to them in terms that are simple, clear, and concise so that everyone understands the mission, the goal, and the end game.
If the leader isn’t making a decision in a timely manner or providing necessary support or leadership don’t blame the leader. First, blame yourself. Examine what you can do to better convey critical information for decisions to be made and support given.
You can’t make the same mistake twice. The second time you make it, it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a choice. Unknown
Discipline yourself. Freedom comes from discipline. The more disciplined we are in life the better our life will be. Our first choice comes with getting up in the morning. Do we jump out of bed with the alarm or do we fail our first test of discipline for the day? If we start the day out right by getting up early and making our bed we have already accomplished something. When we fail the first test of the day though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But, when we exercise discipline in small things it will show up in big ways in our life. If we can master the small things we can master the Big Things. If we fail at the small things we will have more trouble with the big things.
What if we decide to take extreme ownership in our life, will that fix everything? There might be nothing that fixes everything. But we can live our lives in a way that we do what we can in most areas of our life. Sometimes we are the catalyst to make things better or worse. Disciplining ourselves to always try to make things better will give us the best chance at a good life.
Jordan Peterson’s, “12 Rules for Life” and Jocko Willnik and Lief Babin’s, “Extreme Ownership” are in the same vein. They are telling us what we have been told all of our lives by folk wisdom, religions, books, teachers, parents, etc. We have more control over the unfolding of our lives than we think we do. The small decisions we make for good or bad each day compound. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into years, and years turn into our lifetime. All those decisions that didn’t seem like much add up.
We hear about people who win lotteries or made it big and we hear they are broke. How could they be broke? Poor decisions over time have brought them to where they are. We hear of people who never made much money but they die millionaires, the result of good decisions over time.
Life is all about the choices we make in the circumstances we find ourselves in. We may wish we had better circumstances but we need to make the best choice and move on from there to make another good choice. Enough good choices and we will look like one of the lucky ones.
Are we making the best choices in our life daily, weekly, yearly?
Never blame another person for your personal choices – you are still the one who must live out the consequences of your choices. Carolyn Myss
Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: We are what we chose to be. Graham Brown
Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters. Dan Coppersmith
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