Thousands of years ago, under a porch (stoa), a group of Greek philosophers founded stoicism. Through in-depth conversations on the best way to live with the core principles of true happiness, the stoics approached life with a sense of purpose and integrity.
One of the fundamental principles of stoicism is the dichotomy of control. The core idea is owning up to your actions and focusing on what you can control. Some of my core keynotes focus on ownership mindset. This means letting go of circumstances that are out of your control and placing all of your energy and attention on what you can influence: your thoughts, emotions, and actions; also known as the fundamental pillar of self-leadership.
In this article, let’s look at the three levels of taking ownership: how you can do it and why it will transform your life!
From Victim Mindset To Taking Ownership
The first step to taking ownership of your life is to notice if you are in a victim mindset. Firstly, when feeling like a victim, you are being mastered by your circumstances. While with an open mindset, you are mastering your circumstances.
The easiest way to notice if you are taking full responsibility is to check if you are going down the rabbit hole of victim-hood. Feeling like a victim means you blame others, the world, and the circumstances for your lack of progress in any field. If you say: ‘I don’t have time.’, ‘My gym is too far away from home.’ ‘My colleague/ manager is preventing me from succeeding in my career.’ You are blaming the outside – which is a form of victim mindset.
The six signs of a victim mindset are blaming/complaining, being defensive, being rebellious, self-centredness (feeling that you are the target of other people’s actions – it can be similar to paranoia), hiding (purposefully avoiding being the center of attention), and the need for control (in many ways, a form of helplessness). If you realize that you are going through one of these patterns – this illustrates that you are in a victim mindset.
One of the core reasons we fall into this thinking pattern is that by blaming the external, we maintain the status quo – we stay in the same situation. Known as the famous comfort zone and how our brain protects us from possible external dangers. It also saves energy (which again is great for our survival!) because it is easier to blame the world than to take ownership. You need to develop great mental strength and inner resilience to shift your perspective to a taking ownership mindset.
Taking Ownership, Even In Hard Circumstances
In Stephen Covey’s famous book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, the first habit is ‘to be proactive’. From this first habit, everything falls into place. Once you can be proactive, you can master your circumstances.
The funny thing is when you become aware of this paradigm of victim/ownership mindset, you see it everywhere: in stoicism, in coaching, in books & quotes, in Stephen Covey principles, etc. It comes up multiple times because it is fundamental to finding peace, fulfillment, and living on your terms. But what if there is a part of your life/business you cannot influence? What if you are living under a dictatorship or stuck in a job with an unhealthy corporate culture & leadership? What do you do in difficult circumstances?
The truth is that taking ownership is not about glossing over severe circumstances or ignoring them altogether. It’s not about putting on a bright pink pair of glasses and pretending everything is fine. It’s about focusing on aspects you can influence.
A radical example of this mindset is Viktor Frankl. In his book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ Viktor Frankl explains how our ultimate freedom is our ability to choose our response in strenuous circumstances (as he realized in the concentration camps). Even when things fall apart, you can still choose how you react, act, speak to others, speak to yourself, and your perspective because nobody can take away your freedom of response. That is your freedom to choose (Logotherapy), your ability to take ownership & responsibility (Coaching). It is being proactive (Covey) and focusing on what you can control (Stoicism). Whatever you choose to call it – the principle is the same: you can consciously decide how you react to external circumstances.
Transform Your Life!
To transform your life, the best place to start is with ownership. As discussed above, if you are in a victim mindset, you maintain the status quo. You cannot change or transform anything from a place of resistance/passivity/blame/complaining. The irony is it is easy to feel like we are progressing when we are complaining because voicing what we don’t like can feel like we are changing it. But we are not. To change it, you need to identify what you can influence and then take action (be proactive), which will also give you more energy!
Suffering comes from focusing on what we can’t control. Once you accept (and that does not mean resigning yourself) what is out of your control and put all your energy and thoughts in the direction of what you can shift and impact, transformation can occur.
The magic of taking ownership is both inner and outer transformation. Inner transformation is the shift that makes you feel more empowered & at peace – a sense of calm and control, with clear purpose and direction. Outer transformation because you can achieve the results you set your mind to and impact your external circumstances within the margin of your possibilities.
Master your circumstances so they don’t master you. You will shift from feeling powerless and at the mercy of the wind, people’s reactions, the world’s politics, your manager’s mood, and the economy to feeling empowered to progress on the actions that are meaningful to you.
Taking ownership also entails mastering your emotions, as this is also within your control & influence. It’s acknowledging that other people & circumstances (however hard & unpleasant) do not dictate your emotions and responses. You choose what you do with those circumstances. The video ‘Je suis donc tu es’ shows this perfectly.
Last Thoughts
This powerful shift from a victim mindset to taking ownership can transform your life. A coach can support you with shifting from a victim to an ownership mindset. Sometimes, the best you can do is to let go or take aligned action.
It depends on your situation and has been beautifully illustrated in Rudyard Kipling’s poem If: ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too […] Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.’ The message is clear: By taking ownership, you are taking your self-leadership to the next level, and you will impact & transform everything in your life.
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie