Honestly, taking ownership of something that you did or didn't do is difficult and nerve racking. But if you want to grow in your personal life and professional life, you have to learn to take ownership. But what is taking ownership? Let's think back to when you were just a child. Maybe when mom or dad wasn't watching you, you knocked a lamp off of the table. What did you do? How did your parents react? I don't want to assume anything, but I can bet your answer to your parents was "I didn't do it", or "it was the cat/dog". We have all done it. You are there, there is a reaction to what you did, and you go into panic mode or you just don't want to get into trouble, so you blame someone or something else. I get it, who wants to get yelled at or disciplined. But what would have happened if you would have taken ownership of the situation? You will never know. Would you have been yelled at? Maybe, but maybe it would have been a learning experience for you.
How about another example. You are working your day to day job. You work requires you to juggle multiple tasks throughout your day. Things are getting crazy busy, maybe your team is short handed, so the burden has fallen on you and other team members. Now some of your normal job duties are starting to suffer because maybe time management isn't quite an area that you excel at. When you are approached about it, instead of telling your boss that you know that it has been suffering and you will work on it, you just say "well I just don't have time". What would have happened if you had taken ownership? Would you have been written up? Unlikely. Most likely your boss would work with you or make suggestions on how to improve your time management.
But let's take this into your fitness journey. So many people when they are on their journey, starting or have ended it and lost their way do not take ownership when they mess up. Maybe you start, and something comes up just one day. You miss one workout, and don't workout again until you decide to start over. Why did you stop in the first place? I often hear "well something came up". Yeah, something came up on a single day, that didn't stop you from working out the day after or eating healthy. What about the time issue? I have heard this so much, "I don't have time" but you have time for your shows? When you are on a journey, you have to take ownership for everything that happens. You make time, you get back on after a rough day or a day off due to whatever. Let's use me for an example. I went from 336 LBS down to 197 LBS in just 10 months. Things were pretty great. Then I started gaining the weight back and by August 2016 I was back to 326 LBS. Now I wanted to use every excuse in the book, from I was in a relationship for a time, I was comfortable with my life, I needed it for body building and the list goes on. It wasn't until August 2016 that I took ownership of what happened for me to get back where I was. I had gotten lazy, I didn't care as much any more. I wasn't watching my diet. Sure I was meal prepping, but I was over eating and way over snacking. But when I took ownership, I was able to start that ball rolling to change.
When you take ownership, you are empowering yourself to make changes. So think about that next time you are given the option to blame something/someone or to take ownership of the situation.
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