Blaming Others

How often do you look to blame others for something that has gone wrong in your life?

Perhaps it was someone elses fault that you dropped your bag, that you had an argument, that you forgot your keys. Whatever it is, by blaming others you put yourself in a weak position. You ignore the part you play and you give other people control of your life. By blaming others you put them in a position where their emotions or actions are more important than yours, because you let them influence you.

Why would you do this?

In NLP this is often referred to as being on the effect side of life, which is where things happen to us and they are out of our control. But why would you choose to live your life like this? Why would you want to not have control over your emotions, over your actions and over your responses?

It is important to remember that we always have choices, we can always act differently, we can always do something in another manner or way, we can always take responsibility for the way we assess a situation and adjust our behaviour to put us more in control.

By taking charge of our life in this manner we are putting ourself in the cause side of life and by being on this side we recognise that by being flexible in our behaviour we can achieve more of what we want. We don’t overreact, we assess a situation fully, accept other peoples behaviour as being an accumulation of events that are happening in their lives and we become more flexible.

At the end of the day the people that are the most adaptive or flexible will always win out. They will recognise that they can achieve more by reading a situation better, not flying off the handle, not blaming others. They can learn from each situation they find themselves in and they can adapt their behaviour accordingly.

So next time you find yourself in a position where you start to blame others, think how you could do that response differently. Think about WHY the other person could be being annoying, have compassion, put yourself in control of your emotions and take responsibility for the situation. By doing this, you will achieve more and achieve higher levels of happiness.