It can be very difficult to take responsibility for what we do in life. It seems much easier, after all, to simply blame others for why we are where we are in life. As long as we can blame someone else for why we do what we do, then we do not have to make the effort to do anything differently. Just as it can be difficult to accept responsibility for our own choices in life, so too, can it be equally difficult to begin to change.
As a professional counselor, I regularly attempt to help others work through their own process of change – which, as you might imagine, becomes infinitely more challenging when people refuse to accept responsibility for the role they play in interactions. One of the tools many counselors use to help gauge where people are in relation to the process of change is called “scaling.” Scaling simply involves asking people to evaluate themselves on a scale of 1-10. One particular way to use scaling in regard to relationships is to ask people, “With 10 being ‘absolutely perfect in the relationship’ and 1 being ‘absolutely terrible in the relationship,’ where would you rank yourself?” Now the reason counselors use extremes like the word “absolutely” to describe either end of the scale is to help people see that there is always room to grow and improve.
Rare is the person who ranks him or herself as a “10” (though I have encountered several people who openly view themselves as absolutely perfect in their relationship and do claim to be a “10”). The vast majority of people will say that they have things to work on in their relationships and that they are “not perfect;” HOWEVER, and this is a big “however,” many of the majority will then fail to be able to identify what it is that they could actually work on – AND – even if they can identify something that they can work on, they usually say something along the lines of, “Yes, BUT…” and then proceed to tell me how what they have to work on is not as relevant as what the other person in their relationship has to work on; so they revert to talking about the other person and avoid changing the only person whom they can control: themselves.
Maybe some perfect people exist (and if I take them at their word, perhaps I’ve even met them – how exciting for me). Maybe on some metaphysical level, we are all perfect. But maybe, and I’m just spitballing here, maybe we all have things to work on. Maybe we all need to spend more time focusing on what we can do differently, and a whole lot less time focusing on what others can be doing differently. Or not. Maybe we can just spend our energy complaining that our lives will be better as soon as someone else changes.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not comfortable waiting for others to change – it just takes too long. Today, let’s all be mindful of this: every ounce of energy we focus on someone else needing to change is simply less energy we have to impact the only person whom we actually have the power to change.