How to take control over your life

Today I want to talk to you about radical or sometimes called personal responsibility. Radical responsibility is in my opinion the foundation of building your dream life and the core idea that leads to personal freedom. Despite this, radical responsibility is a nuanced topic that can quickly turn toxic if applied in the wrong way. The idea of radical responsibility kind of only applies to people who already have somewhat of a fortunate position and to claim otherwise would be ignorant of structural issues like poverty, racism or sexism. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that when you start taking control over your life, magical things can happen and that’s what I want to talk about today

What is Radical Responsibility

The idea of radical responsibility

The idea of radical responsibility is fairly simple: You are responsible for your own life. It makes a point that instead of being a victim of your surroundings, you should take control and do something about the situation. And for the most part, I stand by this. When you take control of your own situation you can start creating the life you want.

The victim mindset

Most of us adopt a victim mindset. When things go wrong or when we are unhappy we blame our environment. And it’s normal that we do so, almost everybody does and it gives you some sort of social credit. We, humans, love to complain. And don’t get me wrong, a good venting session is great. It can get things of your chest and help you gain clarity. But the habit of complaining is something different. It’s not constructive and it won’t resolve the situation.

What is wrong with the victim mindset?

But what exactly is wrong with the victim mindset? Well, you give away your control. you let others control your wellbeing. You let them control your future, your health, your mindset, and your whole life. and nobody will think of you first but you. Nobody will handle 100% in your interest but you. By adopting a victim mindset you give away a part of yourself to others.

You can’t control what happens to you but you can control your reaction

What is outside of your control?

Does adopting a radical responsibility mindset mean that everything is now your responsibility and that everything is your fault? Well no, this is a mistake many people make in the beginning of this journey. There are things you can control and there are things that are outside of your control. I like to take an exam as an easy example. You have a certain amount of material to study. The exam can be really hard for 2 reasons. A. you did not study enough and B. The professor asked things outside of the agreed study materials. Example A is your responsibility, Example B is not. You can’t control what the professor does. You can control your reaction to it however, you can go and complain to the school for example. But this is a good example of what you can not control and there are a lot of other things outside of your control. The behaviour of others for example. We can’t control their actions, their words, their opinions, their choices, their reactions and yet often we try. We often bend ourselves in all kinds of twists and bends to please other people but it’s wasted energy. They will do what they want to do anyway, they will think what they think, you can’t change that. You can only be kind and respectful to others, how they take that, that’s up to them.

Something else that you can’t control is the past. Imagine you are driving a car. if you are constantly looking back, it will make driving forward way more difficult. Chances are you’ll have an accident that will hinder you from going forward altogether. The same thing happens when you live in the past. If you keep dwelling on past experiences or you refuse to move forward after a fight and you hold a grudge, you create a situation that prevents you from moving forward. Now, Trauma from past experiences is a real thing. And it can totally hold you back for a while and that is okay. It takes time to work through things like that and I truly believe that when you are working through your trauma you are actually taking steps forward. They may be really really small but they are there.

And the last thing that I want to touch on that lies out of your control is what happens in the world. You can vote, you can protest, you can live sustainably but bad things will still happen, and it’s not your fault and not your responsibility to fix on your own either.

What you do control

So what is your responsibility then? Well, mainly your life. You are in control of your words, behaviour, actions, inactions, mistakes, the effort you put in and the consequences of your actions. In other words. You are responsible for your health, your mental health, your happiness, your financial situation, your relationships, your career, your home and anything other personal thing that you can think of. It’s all up to you and before you panic or you dismiss what I am saying, think of the power that can give you. Yes, it is scary and overwhelming right now, but do you realise that you have full control over those things? That means that you decide where to go with it. That means you get to do it your way, you get to do what you want. It’s a skill you need to develop but it’s so fucking liberating

Why is it so important?

Nobody will do it for you

Now, why is it so important to take ownership of those things? Well to put it harshly, because nobody will do it for you. Only you can build a business, only you can change jobs, only you know what will make you happy, only you can get in shape, only you can start working on your financial freedom and only you can change your outlook on a situation.

And I get it it’s really scary that you can’t count on other people, but you don’t need them. You can have people that love and support you, that's amazing but it’s not their responsibility to keep you happy, to know what you want and need or to create opportunities for you. You are not entitled to anything, you’ll have to create it, speak up and go get it.

Now of course there are some things that should be created for everybody like healthcare, education, proper nutrition, and a planet to live on. Everybody deserves to be treated with respect and kindness and we should put an end to racism and poverty and sexism and violence. We should live more sustainably, but that's a political topic, that’s different than just creating a life that will make you happy and fulfilled. And you might disagree with this but I do believe that if people start owning up to their own personal lives they will also start demanding change on a bigger scale. Once you learn to no longer sit around and wait for things to be provided or fixed for you, it becomes way harder to accept the inaction of others. If we all own up together maybe we can get somewhere.

Start learning

So it’s time to stop looking for excuses and to start looking for the resources and skills to own up and show up and bring those dreams to life. And you don’t have to do this alone. I am here, together with so many other creators on youtube and with blogs and podcasts, to teach you to do just that. I have this podcast and my youtube channel that give you so much free content to take your life into your own hands. And if you want even more information I have my 3-month coaching program that takes you from a victim mindset and feeling lost and unhappy to a confident badass bitch well on their way to creating their dream life. It starts very soon and I don’t have many places So be sure to head over to my website, studio-i coaching.com/coaching to enrol if you would like.

Now this will be easier for some than for others. Privilege plays a huge role here, I’m not unaware of that. But I believe that anybody has the option to make changes, some big, some small. Privilege has become a shameful thing in the last few years. But I don’t support that. You 100% need to be aware of your privilege. But what if instead of feeling ashamed of it, you use it to do better? Work so hard on your own life that eventually you can pull other people up with you. Use your privilege to do good. I want to build financial freedom for myself. I want to be rich and I’m not ashamed of it. I am in a position where I can create that for myself. Where others might not. I’m already better off than my parents right now at 25 years old. Because I went to university. And I Have a little half-brother and sister and part of why I want to be rich is so that I can pay for uni for them if need be. I want to be able to give my kids all the possibilities in the world. I want to be able to support charities that I truly believe in. I don’t want to be rich to own a million designer bags and 5 houses all over the world. While I might own a couple of designer bags because I just love fashion, I mainly want to be able to create security for those around me because it was something I did not know when growing up.

How do you start taking responsibility?

Get clear

But enough talk of why you should own up. Let’s talk about how you can do that. Don’t expect to be good at this right away. You need to learn this. You need to get clear on who you are and what you need. You need to learn how to take action, how to set boundaries and how to deal with failure.

Some things might come easier, others may be harder. Boundaries are still very hard for me for example.

But the first step would be to take a look at your life. What is it that you need? What is it that you have been waiting around for others to create for you or to magically change? Is it financial stability, is it that you want to lose weight, or is it that you have way too much on your plate at work?

Look at what you would need to thrive in life, look at what needs to change or what needs to go. Write down all your goals and ambitions and also write down all the things you want to remove from your life. We’ll move on with the goals in a second but right now I want you to take a look at the things that need to go. These are often negative statements like: I need to stop doing x,y,z. Take for example I need to stop saying yes to every new project at work, I have enough work already. I want you to flip those statements around to a positive one. You don’t need to stop saying yes, you need to start setting boundaries at work so you can manage your workflow better. You don’t need to stop binging chips on the couch all night, you need to adopt a healthy lifestyle with balanced nutrition.

Now, why do I make you do this? It’s hard to take action on negative statements. Just stopping a habit or behaviour is way harder than replacing it with something else. That’s why the positive statements work so much better.

So once you have your clear goals It’s time to start working towards them

Start taking action

Look at what you need to achieve your goals. What are the steps you need to take to make those positive statements a reality? Break them down into small steps. You don’t have to jump up the mountain, you need to build a ladder. You won't have this super healthy lifestyle straight away but maybe you can start by replacing 1 food with something healthier like baby carrots instead of chips and that way you can gradually build up and then you can start implementing more movement into your life and eventually you’ll look back and realise you climbed the whole mountain.

Remember that taking action is a skill, it takes time. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you start sprinting up that mountain you’ll get exhausted real quick. You’ll give up. you’ll collapse on the steep hill of the mountain and if you collapse on a steep hill you’ll roll back down and you’ll have to start from the beginning again…

Boundaries

The last point I want to talk about in this episode is setting boundaries. Setting boundaries is an important part of taking responsibility for your life. Other people don’t know what you need. They can’t smell it. So you will have to set clear boundaries with them. If something annoys you, talk about it, If you need a break, talk about it. You will have to stand up for yourself